April 9 – Mixed Signals Coming From the Trump Administration; How Much Did Bombing Syria Distract Attention From the Russia Inquiry?; Cheerleading in the Press For Trump’s Bombing of Syria

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of the motives behind President Trump’s bombing of the Syrian airbase and the mixed signals coming from his administration with his U.N. Representative Nikki Haley advocating regime change saying that there can be no peace in Syria with Assad in power while Secretary of State Tillerson says there is no change in U.S. policy with destroying ISIS still the main objective. Thomas Wright, a fellow and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and author of the forthcoming book “All Measures Short of War: the Contest for the 21^st Century and the Future of American Power” joins us to discuss the E.U. conference on reconstructing post-war Syria that was meeting in Brussels when the chemical attack occurred raising doubts about whether the billions pledged will be forthcoming.

Part 2

Then we examine how much the bombing of Syria distracted attention away from the inquiries into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mark Lowenthal, the President of the Intelligence and Security Academy who was the Republican Staff Director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, joins us to discuss the damage that Devon Nunes has done to the House Intelligence Committee and how much it will impact the Russia investigations going forward.

Part 3

Then finally, following the cruise missile attack on Syria, with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria declaring that “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night”, we will look into the cheer-leading in the press that has accompanied Donald Trump’s use of military force against the Assad regime and speak with Eric Boehlert, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America and author of “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush” and “Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press”. He joins us to discuss the unusual praise for Trump coming not just from the expected sycophants at Fox News, but from many of the anchors on MSNBC such as Rachel Maddow and Brian Williams who are normally critical of Trump.