Background Briefing: January 3, 2023
With the Head of the House and the Head of Our Military Agreeing Trump is Crazy, Why Has it Taken So Long For the Truth to Come Out?
We begin with revelations from Sunday’s release of January 6 transcripts dealing with the most important issue of all and that is the survival of the planet which was at stake when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the head of our military General Milley to ask him to call Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment out of concern that Trump could use his access to the nuclear codes as a desperate attempt to stay in power. The transcripts of Milley confirm that Pelosi said to him referring to Trump: “You know he’s crazy, don’t you,” and Milley agreed with that assessment, going on to reassure Pelosi the nuclear codes were in safe hands. Joining us to assess why it has taken so long to reveal what a few insiders knew, that the President of the United States was mentally unstable, particularly now that Trump is running for the presidency again, is Dr. Bandy Lee, a medical doctor, forensic psychiatrist and a world expert on violence who taught at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for 17 years before transferring recently to Columbia and Harvard. She became known to the public by leading a group of mental health professional colleagues in breaking the silence about Donald Trump’s dangerous psychology and publishing the New York Times bestseller, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. She is currently president of the World Mental Health Coalition and her latest book is Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul.
The Chaotic Election Underway For the Next House Speaker
Then we examine the chaotic election underway for the next House Speaker as a preview of what the next Republican Congress dominated by the radical-right Freedom Caucus will be like. Joining us is Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and Chief Assistant City Attorney in San Francisco who has won cases of significance in the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. He currently focuses on affirmative litigation and defending cases involving civil rights and democratic norms under attack, and we discuss his article at The Hill with Norm Ornstein, “Five things to expect from the incoming House” and another at Salon with Lawrence Tribe, “Scene of the crime: Was there a conspiracy to keep Cassidy Hutchinson silent?”
The Violence Inherent in NFL Football
Then finally we look into the violence inherent in NFL football following the cardiac arrest of Damar Hamlin who laid on the field for nine minutes receiving CPR early in a Monday night game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. Joining us is Robert Lipsyte, a long-time sports writer and the jock culture correspondent for TomDispatch. He was previously a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and for the NBC Nightly News as well as the city columnist of the New York Times and Ombudsman for ESPN. His books include SportsWorld: An American Dreamland and his memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter.