September 15 - Preventing Nuclear War With North Korea; Trump and Clinton's Domestic Policy Advisers; Will the Huckster Beat Teacher Knows Best?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the looming possibility of a nuclear war with North Korea as the Kim Jong Un regime accelerates its nuclear and missile programs, extending its current capability of threatening South Korea and Japan to being able to strike the continental U.S. with nuclear-armed missiles. Dr. Van Jackson, a Professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies who was a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, joins us to discuss his article at Foreign Affairs “Preventing Nuclear War with North Korea” and what can be done to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons by conveying limited aggressive intentions while shoring up deterrence against low-level attacks by North Korea as well as rethinking the role of U.S. forces in Korea which is stuck in a 1980’s mindset.  

Part 2

Then we examine the new report from Public Citizen “The Company They Keep: A Guide to the Presidential Candidates’ Domestic Policy Advisers” and speak with the report’s author Taylor Lincoln, a Research Director of the Congress Watch Division of Public Citizen. He joins us to contrast and compare the rival teams of domestic policy advisers, with the Trump team heavy on Wall Street hedge funders and LBO asset-strippers like Carl Icahn and Henry Kravis, along with the Wall Street cheer squad of Lawrence Kudlow and Stephen Moore, while Hillary Clinton’s team is dominated by mainstream economists.

Part 3

Then finally, we speak with Walt Glazer, a retired historian who taught at the University of Pittsburgh who has a letter in Wednesday’s New York Times “Trump, Master of Marketing”. We discuss the tightening of the polls that has Trump closing on Clinton which makes the role of the Libertarian and Green Party presidential candidates more critical as potential spoilers who could swing the election for Trump, and since our politics have been transformed by money, celebrity and advertising that has captured the media and the minds of Americans, will Trump’s style and success as a huckster win out over Hillary Clinton’s “teacher knows best” persona?