May 25 – The Danger to Journalists For Asking Questions In Trump’s America; Trump Scolds NATO Allies While Disarming Against Russian Active Measures; The Hunt For the Terrorist Network Underway in the UK

Full Program

Part 1

We will begin with the thuggery displayed by the Republican candidate for Congress in Montana and look into how much the millionaire Greg Gianforte models himself on the billionaire Donald Trump.  And in body-slamming The Guardian journalist Ben Jacobs who Gianforte’s office claims is a “liberal reporter”, how much has Trump’s rhetoric in casting the press as “the enemy of the people”, trickled down to not just GOP candidates, but to the party’s grassroots. Trevor Timm, a columnist for The Guardian and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation joins us to discuss how dangerous it has become for journalists to ask questions in Trump’s America and how Trump’s inflammatory attacks on the press and reporters seems to be emboldening GOP activists and politicians to mete out frontier justice.

Part 2

Then we speak with Charles Kupchan, who was director for European Affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration and spent the last 3 years as a Special Assistant to President Obama for National Security. He joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s scolding of NATO allies over defense spending and the disconnect with the Trump Administration’s priorities as they throw more money at the Pentagon while slashing funds for “soft power” in the face of a sustained and effective Russian propaganda and active measures assault on the U.S. and Western Europe.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the hunt for a terrorist network underway in the U.K. following the horrendous suicide bombing in Manchester. David Schanzer, Director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University, joins us to discuss how the British handle the some 300 former ISIS jihadis who returned from Syria and Iraq compared to the U.S. and the current focus on who made the bomb that was used as well as the likelihood that the bomber had training in Libya where he was for the past three weeks before returning to the U.K. just days before the attack.