Category: Briefings

A Weakened Trump As a Split in MAGA Emerges With Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance Jockeying to Succeed America’s Most Corrupt and Disastrous President

We begin with a weakened Trump whose power to intimidate House and Senate Republicans appears to be waning as a split in MAGA emerges between competing factions of far right neo-Nazis and billionaire donors. Joining us to discuss the jockeying to succeed Trump between Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance is Jacob Heilbrunn, the Editor at the National Interest and a non-resident senior fellow at The Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a columnist for The Spectator. His books include They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons and America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. He is also editor-at-large of The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune and is featured in an article in The New York Times “Who’s Afraid of Tucker Carlson? I Can Think of Two People.”

Trump’s Plan to Gut the Department of Education That Only Congress Has the Legal Right to Do

Then we assess how much Trump can gut the Department of Education after yesterday’s announcement of dismantling it which only the Congress has the legal right to do. Joining us is David Halperin, a senior fellow at Republic Report.  He was previously the founding executive director of the American Constitution Society and also served as a White House speechwriter and special assistant for national security affairs to President Clinton; and counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee. We will discuss Trump’s assault on education and David’s recent article at Republic Report, “Billionaire Behind Trump Pressure Campaign on Colleges Owns Predatory University of Phoenix.”

Trump is Pressuring a Weakened Zelensky to Accept a Sellout Peace Plan That is Putin’s Wish List

Then finally we speak with Christopher Miller, the Financial Times’ chief Ukraine correspondent. He has lived in and reported from Ukraine since 2010, and is the author of The War Came To Us: Life And Death In Ukraine, winner of the 2024 Witold Pilecki International Book Award. His reporting has focused on Ukrainian politics, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s relationship with Donald Trump, and various aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine. His work has exposed Russian war crimes and revealed the plight of people forced to live under brutal occupation. Miller was previously a world and national security reporter for Politico and a world correspondent for BuzzFeed News in Kyiv and we discuss his latest articles at The Financial Times on Trump’s latest effort to sell out Ukraine with Putin’s wish list, “US and Russian officials draft new peace plan for Ukraine,” as well as “Volodymyr Zelenskyy distances himself from allies in wartime graft probe.”