Background Briefing: September 14, 2026

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Trump and Mike Johnson’s Plan to Steal the Election, Not On November 3 But On January 3, 2027 

We begin with Trump’s plan to steal the November election as he sits on $850 million that could help elect Republicans to the House and Senate but presumably the grifter-in-chief plans to pocket that money because it won’t matter what the voters decide since Trump plans to steal the election. We discuss Judge Michael Luttig’s article at The New Republic “The Coming Crisis. The Final Battle for American Democracy: Forget November 3. It’s January 3 when Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans might bury our democracy once and for all. Here’s how.” Joining us is David Daley, the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the right’s 50-year plot to control American elections, as well as the national best-seller Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, which has been credited for kickstarting the national movement to reform redistricting. He is a Senior Fellow at FairVote and was the former Editor-in-Chief of Salon.

 

Trump Rejects Guardrails on AI In a Race To the Bottom Which China Will Win

Then with Trump posting today “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”, we look into Trump’s rejection of concerns from AI leaders who want to slow down development. Joining us to explore what can be done to prevent a race to the bottom which China will win if America allows its AI companies more secrecy, more impunity and more power and less restraint as Trump intends is Yaqiu Wang. She is a journalist and fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations. Previously, she was the Research Director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House and the Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch and also worked on press freedom issues for the Committee to Protect Journalists. Yaqiu has an article at Project-Syndicate we discuss, “America’s Un-American AI Companies.”

Trump Blames Zelensky For the Price of Gas And Diesel While Putin Escalates to Destroy a Country He Can’t Conquer 

Then finally, with Trump blaming Zelensky for the price of gas and diesel, we assess Putin’s strength and durability, with help from Trump and his family, as he escalates his war on Ukraine and increases his consolidation of a garrison state under his complete control. Joining us is 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 an article at Foreign Affairs we discuss, “Putin Will Not Yield: Pressure and Pain Won’t Sap Russia’s Resolve in Ukraine.”