March 14 - Trump Purges the White House of Top Advisers Who Offer Criticism or Caution; Is the Trump Organization a Racketeering Enterprise?; The Students Who Walked Out Today to Protest Gun Violence

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an assessment of where U.S. foreign policy is heading as Trump purges his White House of any critical or cautionary voices while he installs his new more agreeable Secretary of State proclaiming Mike Pompeo has “a very similar though process” to his. Michael Fuchs, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state, a special advisor to the secretary of state for strategic dialogue and a member of the policy planning staff, joins us to discuss his article at The Guardian “Rex Tillerson was disastrous for the U.S., Mike Pompeo may be worse”. We look into what letting Trump be Trump will look like as the last remaining adults in the room are shown the door and General McMaster is replaced by John Bolton who is rumored to be the next National Security Advisor. He, along with Pompeo, will be enabling an insecure narcissist and weak strongman with an infantile fascination with bigness, toughness and power along with contempt for diplomacy.

Part 2

Then we speak with Tom Adams, a retired attorney who co-authored an article in the San Francisco Chronicle with a former U.S. Attorney Dennis Aftergut, “Russian criminals’ links to Trump could compromise him” and have written an extensive investigative report which is at the website of Congresswoman Jackie Speier, “The Trump Organization – A Racketeering Enterprise?” We discuss how Trump has laid down a red line with the Mueller investigation not to look into the family business but whatever crimes Mueller might uncover, Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes and that both RICO, the Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act, and New York law, could be used against him.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with two young students who walked out of class today joining a nationwide demonstration of tens of thousands of high school students demanding action to stop gun violence one month after the mass shooting of high school students in Florida. 16 year-old Mackenzie Mattone who organized a student walkout at Benjamin Cardoza High School in New York City joins us first then we will hear from 17 year-old Jatziri Campos at Muchin College Prep, a Charter School in gun-plagued downtown Chicago.