May 1 - Trump Invites a Blood-Drenched Killer to the White House; Trump's Ominous Use of the Label "Criminals";What Happened to the Champions of the Middle and Working Classes, the Democrats?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Trump’s “very friendly conversation” with the murderous president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte who he invited to the White House despite the thousands of Filipinos who have been gunned down by vigilantes urged on by Duterte. Vikram Singh, who previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia at the Pentagon, joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s apparent affection for strongmen and how much the American president and Attorney General Sessions are sympathetic to Duterte’s brutal and arbitrary crackdown on drugs given Session’s obsession with marijuana and his plans to revive the war on drugs. We will also assess Duterte’s pivot to China and his coy remarks that he may be too busy to accept Trump’s invitation because “I’m supposed to go to Russia; I’m also supposed to go to Israel”.

Part 2

Then we examine Donald Trump’s ominous use of the word “criminal” to describe immigrants and political opponents alike and speak with Jason Stanley, a Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and author of “How Propaganda Works”. We discuss his article in The New York Times “Who is a Criminal” and investigate what agenda might be behind the dark and dystopian vision of chaos and carnage in American inner cities and at the border that Trump and Sessions are pushing as Trump dehumanize immigrants as he did on Saturday calling them “snakes” to wild applause from his followers.

Part 3

Then finally, on this May Day, we speak with historian Jefferson Cowie, the author of “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970’s and the Last Days of the Working Class” whose latest book is “The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics”. We will discuss what happened to the champions of the middle and working classes, given the lack of political opposition to Trump and the Republicans today, compared to the 1970’s when the liberals and the Democrats dominated the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court.