Background Briefing: October 20, 2025
Trump’s Outlandish Vulgarity has Support in the GOP and Deep Roots in American Politics
We begin with the AI video Trump posted of himself flying a fighter jet wearing a crown and dropping poop on demonstrators at Saturday’s No Kings rallies and discuss how in spite of Joe Biden’s often repeated assurance that “This is not who we are,” Trump’s relentless trolling and thoroughly vulgar and outlandish demagogy has support in the Republican party and the politics of cruelty, vindictiveness, and gleeful resentment have deep roots in America. Joining us is Van Gosse, a professor of history emeritus at Franklin and Marshall College and co chair of Historians for Peace and Democracy. We will discuss his article at his new substack In The Red, “Trumpism, It Was Ever Thus”
Witkoff and Kushner in Israel to Plug Holes in the Israel/Hamas Peace Plan With VP Vance Arriving Tomorrow for More Damage Control
Then with Trump having sent Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Israel to plug the holes in the shaky Israel/Hamas peace plan and VP Vance arriving there tomorrow for more damage control, we speak with Dr. Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East and North Africa. She has worked as a journalist in Egypt and Yemen and served as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor until resigning over President Biden’s policy on the war in Gaza. She has an article at Responsible Statecraft, “Trump offers Gaza plan that will please no one but Trump”
The Contentious Trump/Zelensky Meeting at Which Trump Parroted Putin’s Talking Points and Russian Propaganda
Then finally we assess the recent contentious meeting between Trump and Zelensky at which Trump was shilling for Putin, parroting the Kremlin’s talking points that the conflict is “a special military operation”, not a war and their propaganda that the Russians are winning the war and their economy is “doing great”. Joining us is Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University. She lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University and studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods. She is the author of 9/11: The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law and has a recent article with Stacy Abrams at Time, “We Can Stop the Rise of American Autocracy”