Background Briefing: April 25, 2024
More Special Treatment of Trump by the Supreme Court
We begin with today’s Supreme Court hearing on Trump’s immunity claim that is delaying Jack Smith’s Washington DC case against Trump for the January 6 insurrection and based on what we heard today, the far-right justices will delay things even more until after the election or possibly rule in favor of presidents having immunity to commit crimes in and out of office. Joining us is Aziz Huq, a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago who is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and is the co-author of How to Save a Constitutional Democracy, and his latest book is The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies. He had an article at Politico back at the end of February, “Why Is Trump Getting Special Treatment From the Supreme Court?”
Implications of Biden’s TikTok Ban
Then we assess the implications of the TikTok ban President Biden signed not just in terms of possible influence China has over the millions of young American users but how the Social Media platform relates to the broader problem of surveillance capitalism which is the business model for Facebook, Google and other American tech giants. Joining us is Aynne Kokas, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia whose research examines Sino-US media and technology relations. She is the author of Hollywood Made in China and most recently, Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty, and we will discuss her article at the LA Times, “Why a TikTok ban isn’t what we need.”
The Enduring Relationship Between the Far-Right and Conservative Movements of “Responsible” and “Respectable” Republicans
Then finally we speak with David Austin Walsh, a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism and a College Fellow at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the new book, just out, Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right and we discuss antisemitism on campuses and the enduring relationship between America’s far-right and conservative movements of “responsible” and “respectable” Republicans.