April 26 - Trump's Biggest Tax Cut in History... For Himself; Trump's Latest Attack on the Federal Judiciary; What Came Out of the Unusual White House Briefing of Senators on North Korea

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the White House trumpeting the biggest tax cut in history which will add bigly to the deficit by allowing the top taxpayers to call themselves pass-through corporations reducing their tax rate down from 39% to 15% which is the new corporate tax rate Trump is proposing. Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of “Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy are Structured to Make the Rich Richer”, joins us to discuss how these so-called “tax reform” proposals are the same old tax cuts for the rich that are supposed to magically spur the economy and create jobs, as well as his latest article at Common Dreams “Donald Trump’s Big Tax Cut…For Himself”.

Part 2

Then we examine the tweet storm from Donald Trump following a ruling by a federal judge in San Francisco that blocked his executive order targeting sanctuary cities. Kevin Johnson, a Professor and the Dean of Public Interest Law at the University of California, Davis joins us to discuss Trump’s latest attack on the federal judiciary that include a personal attack on the judge who issued the nationwide preliminary injunction as well as an attack on the 9^th Circuit which did not make the ruling that Trump mischaracterizes as a gift to criminal gangs and cartels when in fact the judge ruled Trump’s order will likely violate the Constitution by depriving a jurisdiction of funds unrelated to immigration.

Part 3

Then finally we get an update on the just-concluded meeting at the White House by U.S. Senators invited there for an unusual briefing on North Korea by the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Sung Yoon Lee, a Professor of International Affairs at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University, joins us to discuss whether this was a photo-op for Trump or an opportunity to learn what strategies are to be employed following a sixth North Korean nuclear test which is expected soon.