Background Briefing (5am)

Lydia Camarillo / Steven Greenhouse / Alexander Stille

How the Latino and Latina Vote Will Decide the Election, and Trump’s Latest Racist Slur at Mexicans

We begin with the Latino and Latina vote being the critical decider in the election less than two weeks away and assess whether the latest revelation of Trump’s racist contempt for Americans with roots in Spanish-speaking countries will sway the vote in Harris’s favor. Trump had promised to pay for the funeral of a young Latina soldier who was brutally murdered, but when he got the bill, he told his Chief of Staff he wasn’t going to pay, saying, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a F—ing Mexican.” Joining us is Lydia Camarillo, the President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project a national non-profit non-partisan organization based out of San Antonio, Texas. She plays a key role in developing the tactical strategies for the SVREP nonpartisan voter registration, voter education, and get out the vote campaigns. President Clinton and Vice President Gore appointed Lydia to serve as CEO of the 2000 Democratic National Convention. Prior to joining SVREP, Camarillo served as the National Director of the Leadership Development Program for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

As Trump Tries to Win the Votes of Workers, His Anti-Worker Record is Glaring

Then we examine how the reality TV star, who became famous for his catch-phrase “your fired,” is trying to win the votes of workers while having a record of unyielding hostility to workers he has screwed at every turn in his businesses. Joining us is Steven Greenhouse, a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation who was previously a reporter for The New York Times and who covered labor and the workplace for nineteen years. He also served as a business and economics reporter and a diplomatic and foreign correspondent. The author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker and Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, he joins us to discuss his latest article at The Guardian, “Trump is anti-worker. Here are 10 of his most shocking anti-worker statements.”

A Scholar of Fascism and Italy, Where Fascism Began, On Trump’s Former Chief of Staff’s Comment That Trump “Fits Into the General Definition of Fascist”

Then finally, we speak with a scholar of fascism and Italy, where fascism began, now that Trump is being labelled a fascist by his former Chief of Staff General Kelly, who just said Trump fits the definition of being a fascist. Joining us is Alexander Stille, a San Paulo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia University. He is the author of Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism; Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic; The Future of the Past; The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture was taken over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi; and his latest, The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy and the Wild Life of an American Commune.