April 2 - The Latest Antics of the Tweeter-in-Chief; Venezuela Circles the Drain; The Takeover of the GOP by Southern Reactionaries and Moneyed Libertarians

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the upcoming visit to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-logo retreat this week by China’s President Xi Jinping and the extent to which the Chinese have already learned that the way to get things done with Trump is to work through the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Michael Fuchs, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs joins us to discuss the extraordinary and growing broad portfolio that the 36 year old with no prior government experience has taken on, and the marginalization of the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as the latest antics of the tweeter-in-chief whose daily distractions appear to provide the Republican Congress with cover to enact an unpopular and reactionary agenda while the press and public are fixated on the latest White House scandal.

Part 2

Then we go to Caracas, Venezuela to speak with Virginia Lopez, a Venezuelan journalist who covered Latin America and Venezuela for The Guardian and Al Jazeera English. Since most foreign correspondents have had their visas revoked by the Maduro government, she has not yet been kicked out of her own country and we discuss the reversal of the Supreme Court’s ruling to strip congress of its legislative powers and the political exhaustion of the Venezuelan people who have to spend most of their energy lining up for food and basic staples.

Part 3

Then finally, with the Koch brothers backing the rebellious Freedom Caucus and now imperiling Trump and Ryan’s tax overhaul plans, we look into the takeover of the Republican Party by Southern reactionaries and moneyed libertarians with Kevin O’Leary, a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine and author of “How the Sinister Union of Southern Reactionaries and Moneyed Libertarians Hijacked America”.