August 17 - Trump Gets His First Intel Briefing From Briefers He Does Not Trust; Were Roger Ailes' Fingerprints on Trump's Very Effective Speech Last Night?; Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Donald Trump’s first intelligence briefing today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at a secure FBI facility. Trump was accompanied by his friend Governor Chris Christie and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael Flynn, who is there at his side because Trump does not trust intelligence information from those currently in charge. Ali Watkins, a Washington D.C. based journalist who covers national security for Buzzfeed News who previously covered national security for McClatchy Newspapers’ D.C. bureau, joins us to discuss the likelihood that Trump will get a bland and sanitized overview of the threat landscape without operational details, given the difficult task briefers have in exposing national secrets to Trump who often claims to be revealing secret information like Obama’s payoff to Iran for hostages that only took place in his imagination.

Part 2

Then, following a very effective and well-crafted speech that Donald Trump delivered in Milwaukee last night, we  speak with Dr. Kerwin Swint, a professor of politics at Kennesaw State University who specializes in campaigns, elections and mass media. The author of “Dark Genius: The Influential Career of Legendary Political Operative and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes”, he joins us to discuss whether Roger Ailes, who is reported to be helping prep Trump for the debates, has his fingerprints on last night’s speech that has all the earmarks of adult supervision.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the extreme weather events underway with deadly floods in Louisiana and out-of-control fires in California that have forced over 82,000 people from their homes, and speak with Forbes Tompkins, a Research Analyst in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute whose work focuses on the analysis of climate change impacts throughout the U.S. With this July the hottest on record according to NOA and NASA and the floods in Louisiana classified by NOA as the eighth flood considered to be a once-in-every-500-years event in this year alone, we will look into the obvious links between extreme weather and climate change.