Background Briefing: June 16, 2025
Trump as the Fountainhead of Political Violence as Republicans Blame the Victims and Fox News Claims Democrats Are Attacking Trump Officials When it is Democratic Lawmakers Who are Being Assassinated
We begin with Trump as the fountainhead of political violence which trickles down to Republican lawmakers who try to blame the exponentially increasing threats, attacks and violence on the victims. Meanwhile, the right wing media echo chamber has Fox News promoting an alternative reality in which Democrats are the insurrectionists and provocateurs attacking Trump officials but it is Democratic lawmakers who are being assassinated. Joining us to discuss Trump’s military parade and navigate this Orwellian landscape is Stephen Marche, a novelist and culture writer who has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Esquire, and many other publications. He is the author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future, and his latest book, co-authored with Andrew Yang is, The last Election. We will discuss his latest article at The Guardian, “Violence is coming to define American political life.”
Trump’s $45 Million Military Parade and $130 Million Deployment of Troops in LA Could Keep a Million Americans on Food Stamps
Then we examine the priorities in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that rewards a trillion dollar Pentagon and showers $45 billion on ICE and DHS to build more private prisons and round up immigrants. Joining us is Lindsay Koshgarian, the Program Director of the National Priorities Project, where she oversees NationalPriorities.org. Her work on the federal budget includes analysis of the federal budget process and politics, military spending, and specifically how federal budget choices for different spending priorities and taxation interact. She has an article at Newsweek, “Trump’s Pentagon Parade Will Cost Lives and Livelihoods.”
An Assessment of Where the Escalating War Between Israel and Iran is Heading
Then finally we assess where the escalating war between Israel and Iran is heading, and as more US planes and ships head for the region, whether Trump will green light the B2’s with “bunker-busters” to help out Netanyahu. Joining us is Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and a Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now, he is the author of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East.