July 17 - Inside the Declassified 28 Pages on the Saudi Role in 9/11; Erdogan Calls the Failed Military Coup "A Gift From God"; The Amateur Theatrics Surrounding Trump's Pick for VP

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the release of the 28 pages from the joint congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks that were classified by President George W. Bush which now to some extent implicate the Bush family friend Prince Bandar who was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Veteran CIA officer Robert Baer, the author of “Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude”, who is now the national security analyst for CNN, joins us to discuss the contents of the declassified documents that detail contacts between some of the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi officials as well as efforts by the Saudi government to thwart U.S. efforts in combatting al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks.

Part 2

Then we speak with Asli Bali, the Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA who was born in Turkey and has family in a country on edge after a failed military coup that the country’s autocratic President Erdogan has described as a “gift from God” which he is now taking advantage of with a vengeance as he rounds up thousands of military officers and judges in a purge that will accelerate his increasing power grab from what was a slow coup before the botched overnight attempted coup by elements of the military who claimed to be acting in the name of democracy.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the absurd amateur theatrics surrounding Donald Trump’s pick of Mike Pence as his running mate with Pence getting wind that Chris Christie was weighing in on Trump to pick him so Pence went ahead and leaked to the press that he was the chosen VP which infuriated Trump who them had buyer’s remorse and second thoughts which Christie then leaked to the press in the hope that the decision could be reversed. Marjorie Hershey, a professor of Political Science at Indiana University whose research focuses on political parties, campaigns and elections, joins us to discuss the unseemly ambition of Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his desperate vice-presidential rivals Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich.