June 19 – Senate Democrats Try to Force Republicans Into the Open; What Trump is Really Guilty Of; Terror Attack in London Against Muslim Worshipers

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with a looming showdown in the U.S. Senate as Democrats try to force the Republican Obamacare replacement bill out into the open from its behind closed doors negotiations by Republicans whose Senate leader hopes to jam it through using the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster. Joining us is a veteran senate staffer Paul Light, Professor of Public Service at New York University who was director of the Government Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and is the author of “Government by Investigation: Presidents, Congress, and the Search for Answers 1945-2012”. We discuss the many tactics that can slow down the Senate and the likelihood that when the Republican healthcare bill sees the light of day and is scored by the CBO, moderate Republican will abandon it, as well as try to figure out Trump’s tweet calling the bill “mean” and what effect that might have on its uncertain future.

Part 2

Then we examine the latest disarray caused by Trump’s tweets attacking the Deputy Attorney General for initiating an investigation of him which Trump calls a witch hunt only to have his lawyer say the president is not being investigated at the same time saying he is. James Kirchick, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Initiative in Washington D.C. and author of “The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age” joins us to discuss his article at the Los Angeles Times ”If Trump were really in league with Russia, that would be reassuring for America’s civic sanity” and why he thinks it is unlikely that Trump will be found guilty of collusion with the Russians and how the various investigations serve to distract us from the fact that Trump is guilty of being an unscrupulous, unpatriotic demagogue.

Part 3

Then finally we look into a terror attack in London in which nine worshippers leaving a north London mosque were seriously injured by a van driven by a father of four from Cardiff who told the group of Muslims who held him until the police arrived that “you deserve it” and “I did my bit”. Charles Kurzman, the co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations joins us to discuss how this attack is exactly what the Islamic State was hoping to provoke in response to its terrorist attacks designed to drive a wedge between Muslims in the diaspora and their host countries.