September 19 - Trump's Belligerent Bluster on the World Stage; The Noose is Tightening Around Manafort; Two Republican Senators Waver Under Pressure to Pass Graham-Cassidy Bill

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with Donald Trump’s “America First” speech before the U.N. today in which he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea. Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund and author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons” joins us to discuss how extraordinarily lucky we have been that no nuclear weapon has been use in anger since Nagazaki in 1945 and the recent passing of “the man who saved the world” a former Soviet military officer Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov who is September of 1983 decided that the alarm bells from the early warning system detecting 5 American Minuteman missiles heading for the Soviet Union was a computer error and thus the world was saved from an accidental nuclear war because he defied orders and overrode an automatic massive Soviet retaliation. Now with the growing possibility that the U.S. could stumble into a nuclear war with North Korea, we look into Trump’s belligerent stance on the world stage and discuss the dinner that our guest attended last night with the President of Iran.

Part 2

Then we assess how much the noose is tightening around top Trump officials including Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort who is under enormous pressure from the Special Counsel investigating Russian meddling in the election since Manafort was told that he will be indicted. Robert Dreyfuss, a contributing editor to The Nation and an independent investigative journalist specializing in politics and national security, joins us to discuss his latest article at Rolling Stone “Russiagate Dominoes Are Starting to Fall” and how Manafort has been under CIA and FBI surveillance since 2014 up until recently, which means that it is likely the government has transcripts of phone calls between Trump and Manafort.

Part 3

Then finally we  speak with Wendell Potter, a former chief corporate spokesman for CIGNA and head of corporate communication for Humana who is now a senior analyst on health care at the Center for Public Integrity and founder of Tarbell.org. He joins us to discuss his latest article at Truthout “Even Business Leaders Are Realizing Health Insurance Companies Serve No Purpose” and how two Republican senators who voted against the last effort to repeal Obamacare are wavering under pressure to go along with the hideous and cruel Graham-Cassidy bill.