April 16 - Ukraine on the Brink of Civil War Thanks to Putin; The Smoking Gun Revealing the Cost Culture and Cover-Up at GM; Bloomberg Takes on the NRA

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the crisis in Ukraine the main instigator of which, Russian President Vladimir Putin, is warning is “on the brink of civil war”. The former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer joins us to discuss whether talks between the U.S., Russian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers scheduled in Geneva on Thursday will avert a shooting war, and what the weak government in Kyiv can do to reassure its citizens in the East to prevent further destabilization of the country by Russian political tourists and intelligence and paramilitary agents who have thoroughly infiltrated Ukraine’s eastern provinces.

Part 2

Then wespeak with Joan Claybrook, the former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who wrote a joint letter with Clarence Ditlow, the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety to GM’s CEO Mary Barra saying that newly-released GM documents are an obscure but smoking gun that “paint a tragic picture of the cost culture and cover-up at GM”. We discuss revelations in these internal GM documents that show the company considered, then rejected a safer ignition switch in 2001, which they later in 2006, quietly provided as a replacement part, after 32 crashes in which 13 people died.

Part 3

Then finally, we look into former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg’s $50 million challenge to the NRA, aimed at “the hearts and minds of America, so that we can protect our children, protect innocent people” from gun violence. Daniel Webster, a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research joins us to discuss the launch of Everytown for Gun Safety and whether it will curb gun violence in what Bloomberg notes is “the only civilized country in the world that has this problem”.