June 19 – The Assassination of an M.P.’s Impact on the “Brexit” Vote; Is the Republican Party Heading For a Crack-Up?; An In-Depth Interview With Ambassador Chas Freeman

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Part 1

We begin with the rise of nativism and nationalism in the U.K. following the brutal murder of Jo Cox a Labor Member of Parliament by an  assassin who calls himself “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain”, this ahead of Thursday’s vote on the so-called “Brexit” of the U.K. from the E.U. Polly Toynbee, a columnist for The Guardian who was formerly the BBC’s social affairs editor and associate editor of The Independent, joins us to discuss the similarities in the U.K. to the rise of anti-immigrant racism in the U.S. that Donald Trump is stoking amongst angry white working class voters and the neck-and-neck polls that indicate a slight lead for the “leave” vote although the widespread shock and revulsion over the killing of the rising star in the Labor Party may tip the scales for the “remain” vote.

Part 2

Then we look into the growing signs that the Republican Party is heading for a crack-up as more and more Republicans alarmed by the down-ballot disaster that Donald Trump poses for Republican control of the Senate and now even the House, are calling for a rules change at the convention to ease Trump out of the race and replace him with a candidate like Paul Ryan who could mitigate the electoral meltdown Republican congressmen and senators fear. Bruce Bartlett, a columnist for The Fiscal Times who was a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House joins us to discuss whether his prediction a year ago in Politico that Trump’s defeat will purge the GOP of the Tea Party still holds as the Republican Party now appears to be trying to purge Trump.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Ambassador Chas Freeman, a Senior Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Affairs and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He joins us to discuss his new book “America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East” and his latest article at The National Interest “What America Keeps Getting Wrong in the Middle East”. We investigate the many foreign policy blunders as well as explore policy changes that could reverse the serial quagmires the U.S. both creates and mires itself in the Middle East.