Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Trump’s denial in a tweet today claiming he has no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia for that matter) which flies in the face of the many statements he made on the campaign trail boasting about how much money he was making out of the Saudis and that he liked them very much. Carolyn Kenney, a senior policy analyst for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress joins us to discuss her new report, “Trump’s Conflicts of Interest in Saudi Arabia” and the large number of Saudi-related LLC’s Trump listed in his May 2016 financial disclosure. We go back to Trump’s earlier dealing with Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal who gave Trump an infusion of desperately needed cash when he bought Trump’s yacht in 1991 after he was forced to surrender it to creditors and then again in 1995 when lenders made him sell the Plaza Hotel. Talal bought the Plaza for less than Trump paid for it years earlier. It seems to be hardly a coincidence that Prince Alaweed bin Talal who Trump took frequent jabs at on Twitter, was one of the names on a classified U.S. Intelligence list of critics of the Saudi Crown Prince that Jared Kushner is reported to have given MBS. One of the richest Saudis, Alaweed bin Talal was arrested by MBS, tortured and forced to give over a considerable chunk of his fortune to Jared and Trump’s friend MBS who now stands accused of murdering and butchering a Saudi-American journalist with The Washington Post.

Part 2

Then finally we examine the possibility that Turkey’s President Erdogan is angling for a big pay-off from the Saudis to make this embarrassing matter go away or that he is bluffing and does not have the evidence of the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi that has been leaked to the press in tantalizing snippets for the last week. Henri Barkey, who served as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and is the author fo “Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey’s Role in the Middle East”, joins us to discuss his hunch that Erdogan does not have the evidence the Turks have promised.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Aaron Stein, a resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. An expert on Turkey, he joins us to discuss the extent to which President Trump is orchestrating the Saudi denial and cover-up following Trump’s announcement today that MBS told him in a phone call that he “totally denied any knowledge” of what happened to Khashoggi and that the Crown Prince wants “a full and complete investigation into this matter”. We  assess what kind of a deal Secretary of State Pompeo is making as he heads to Turkey tomorrow after talks with the Saudi leadership.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the increasing isolation of Saudi Arabia as more and more evidence points to the Saudi Crown Prince MBS as the person responsible for ordering the assassination and gruesome murder and dismemberment of a Saudi-American journalist in Turkey. David Hearst, the Editor of The Middle East Eye, joins us from London to discuss his latest article “Trump and the boy king: Mohammed bin Salman’s reign is over before it even began”. Although MBS has moved ruthlessly to control Saudi Arabia’s three militaries and intelligence services and is conducting a reign of terror against his fellow princes, we assess the likelihood that international pressure on the Saudi royal family will eventually mean that MBS will not become their next king. As David Hearst points out in his article “If Khashoggi’s death was an act of insanity, a total madman must have ordered it”, not to mention that it was an act of barbarity you would expect from ISIS. We also look into the similarities between the two pampered, arrogant and incompetent princes Jared Kushner and MBS who claims he has Trump’s son-in-law in his pocket, and the likelihood that Kushner gave MBS a classified list of the Crown Prince’s critics who were later arrested, tortured and had their fortunes confiscated.-

Part 2

Then we speak with the policy director of the non-partisan National Election Defense CoalitionSusan Greenhalgh about the brazen voter suppression going on in Georgia where the Republican Secretary of State running for governor is rigging the election in his favor. We will also address concerns about Russian interference in the November election and the puzzling inaction by Republicans and the Trump Administration to ensure our vulnerable election systems are protected. Particularly since there is evidence the Russian’s likely hacked the vote in North Carolina’s Durham County in 2016 and got away with it because of a lack of interest on the part of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to look into it.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Greg Sargent, who writes the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post about his new book, just out, “An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics”. He joins us to discuss the dilemma facing the Democrats, many of whom are seething at the ruthless GOP tactics used to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, as they face a choice whether to follow Michelle Obama’s advice that “when they go low, we go high”, or takes the gloves off and stop bringing a butter knife to a knife fight.