Trump Tears Down the East Wing for a Gilded Ballroom While Washington’s Government Workers Aren’t Getting Paid
We begin with the vandalism underway at the White House where the East Wing is being torn down to build a vanity project for Trump, a $250 million ballroom gilded with garish gold and glittering chandeliers at a time when Washington’s government workers are not being paid as Trump splurges with Marie Antoionette-like indulgence while his minions Kristi Noem and her boyfriend Cory Lewendowski gift themselves with Gulfstream jets at the taxpayers’s expense. Joining us is David Cay Johnston, a professor at The Rochester Institute of Technology and a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and bestselling author of The Making of Donald Trump. A 13 year veteran of The New York Times, he won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting that uncovered loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code and he has uncovered so many tax dodges that he has been called the “de facto tax enforcement officer of the United States”. His latest book is The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family. He’s also the co-founder of DCReport.org
Trump’s Judges Overturn District Court Rulings for Troops to Intimidate Portland and Chicago
Then we examine the cases being overturned on appeal to allow Trump to proceed with deploying troops to Portland and Chicago over the objections of the state governors and what it will mean for blue states to have the military and ICE at polling stations next November. Joining us is James Zirin, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and the host of the critically acclaimed television talk show, Conversations with Jim Zirin, which airs on PBS. He is the author of Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court and Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits. He is a contributing editor at The Washington Monthly where his latest article is “Family Feud: Donald Trump and the Pritzkers” and he has another article out tomorrow at The Hill “Jack Smith Calls Out Trump’s Revenge Indictments.”
Will Trump Attack Venezuela to Please Little Marco?
Then finally we speak with William LeoGrande, a professor of government and former dean of the American University School of Public Affairs. He is a specialist on Latin American politics and has been a frequent adviser to congress on issues of U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America including as a staffer to the Democratic Policy Committee of the United States Senate. He has written five books including, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana and he has an article at Responsible Statecraft we will discuss, “Will Trump really attack Venezuela?”