More Important Than Trump’s Mental Decline is the Rising Possibility of JD Vance as the Tech Bros President of the United States
We begin with the big story being missed, as much of the media focuses on Trump’s mental decline without noticing the very real possibility that we could soon have JD Vance as our president. As odious as the tech bros Theil, Musk, and Sacks are, they are not stupid, and they may well have made a smart investment in this pliable vessel, who will bail them out of crypto, open up the Pentagon budget to them, and execute their horrifying Project 2025 agenda. Joining us to question why the Democrats are not focusing on the president-in-waiting JD Vance is Jacob Heilbrunn, the Editor at the National Interest, 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 has an article at The Spectator, “J.D. Vance made the case for Trump better than Trump.”
A Report From South Korea on the Rising Fury of Kim and His Sister and the Desertion of North Korean Troops in Ukraine
Then we go to Seoul, South Korea and speak with Sung Yoon Lee, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has testified as an expert witness in the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on North Korea policy. His latest book is The Sister: The extraordinary story of Kim Yo Jong, the most powerful woman in North Korea. We discuss Kim and his sister’s fury at drones dropping leaflets over the North criticizing the God-like “dear leaders”; and North Korean soldiers deserting the front in Ukraine, where Kim has sent them to help out Putin.
As BRICS Expands, Is it a Dictators Club or an Alternative to the Domination of the Dollar?
Then finally, we look into next week’s BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia at which Turkey and Azerbaijan, along with Thailand and Malaysia, will join the group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE. Joining us is Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute and adjunct faculty at George Washington University, where he teaches a class on the geopolitics of climate change. His focus areas are geopolitical risk, grand strategy, and climate security, with a special emphasis on Asia and the Global South. We discuss his article at The Nation, “Can BRICS Rise in a World Threatened by War?”