December 19 - The Assassination of Russia's Ambassador to Turkey; Trump's Collision Course with the CIA; An Expert Who Conducted the Recount in Wisconsin on Whether the Issue is Settled

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the assassination of Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey at the hands of an off-duty Turkish policeman who shouted “don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire. Aaron Stein, a Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Center for the Middle East whose research interests include U.S.-Turkey relations, Turkish foreign policy and the Syrian conflict, joins us. We discuss whether there is a disconnect between President Erdogan’s policy of stirring up anti-Americanism while cozying up to Russia, and how the Turkish people feel about Russian atrocities in Aleppo and Syria that are straining Turkish resources on the border as more and more Syrian refugees pour into Turkey to escape the Russian/Iranian/Assad offensive to capture Aleppo and the rest of rebel-controlled Syria.

Part 2

Then we speak with a veteran former CIA officer Mel Goodman, about Donald Trump’s continuing denial of Russian involvement in helping him win the election, now that it is the consensus of the Intelligence Community that Putin did indeed intend to hurt Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump. We will discuss whether Trump, who has trashed the CIA and refuses to take daily briefings, will continue on this collision course and reject the findings of a report on Russian hacking that Obama has ordered released before his term ends and Trump is inaugurated.

Part 3

Then finally, with today’s The New York Times report finding that there was next to no voter fraud in the recent election, we speak with David Jefferson, a computer scientist in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing who sits on the boards of the California Voter Foundation and Verified Voting. He was among the experts who conducted the recount in Wisconsin and was poised to do so in Pennsylvania and Michigan before the Trump campaign sued to stop the recount. We discuss whether the issue is settled and what remains to be done to secure voting systems in America.