April 25 - Is The Senate Intelligence Committee Also Dysfunctional?; Cheap and Effective Alternatives to Trump's Border Wall; Is Russia Arming the Taliban?

Full Program

Part 1

With the House Intelligence Committee in shambles after what appears to be deliberate sabotage by its chairman Devon Nunes, we begin with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling and possible collusion with Trump in the 2016 election which is moving at glacial speed. Tim Mak, a senior correspondent at the Daily Beast, joins us to discuss his reports that there are no qualified full-time staff members of the seven working part-time on the Senate Russia inquiry and that "no interviews have been conducted with key individuals."

Part 2

Then as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tries to reassure Trump’s base that "priorities have not changed," we will look into President Trump’s backing down on his repeated campaign promise to build a wall along the border that Mexico will pay for which was supposed to be funded in this week’s spending bill. Sonia Nazario, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 6 part investigative series “Enrique’s Journey” which is now a best-selling book, joins us to discuss her article at the Los Angeles Times, “How to Secure the Border. Spoiler alert: A Wall won’t do it.” We discuss how much cheaper solutions will help solve the problems that a $20 billion wall will certain not do.

Part 3

Then finally, as the general in charge of US operation in Afghanistan refuses to dispute claims that Russia is sending weapons to the Taliban, we examine the charges and what evidence might support them with Marvin Weinbaum who served as an analyst on Pakistan and Afghanistan for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois and a resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and the author of The Future of Afghanistan and we assess whether there are other reasons why we appear to losing America’s longest war other than the possibility of perfidious behavior by Putin.