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Part One:
ADD RICK PERRY TO THE CORRUPTION LIST – AND ADD ECONOMIC CORRUPTION TO THE POLITICAL. We speak with Ben Lefebvre, writer for Politico, about evidence he uncovered about U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s corruption. Even before he joined Pres. Trump in pressuring a foreign country (Ukraine) to interfere in the U.S. 2020 election, Perry was using his influence — as a high-ranking official in the U.S. government — to line his own pockets and those of his cronies. For example, he tried to steer Ukraine to purchase liquid natural gas (LNG) from two of Perry’s Texas buddies (who had, of course, donated generously to Perry’s previous political campaigns).
Rudy Giuliani, too, put pressure on the Ukrainians to buy LNG from two of his cronies — and it appears that Rudy’s cronies may not have even been in the business of supplying LNG! A lot of the recent news has focused on Hunter Biden, but another former Biden aide was also added to the Board of the same Ukrainian LNG company. (But at least this Biden aide had had some experience in the LNG industry.)
WHAT IS TRUTH? Perry and Giuliani have denied allegations that they asked the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. They insist that they did not even mention the name “Biden.” But does this mean they truly were not complicit in any alleged violations? What if Trump and his allies had previously indoctrinated the newly elected President of Ukraine with the idea that the Bidens were corrupt? If this smear were repeated often enough, wouldn’t Pres. Zelenskiy come to believe it?
Part of the Trump M.O. seems to be a propaganda campaign. Like Pavlov’s dogs and Skinner’s pigeons, Trump relentlessly grooms the minds of his listeners, until he has changed the way they think. Does Trump have to spell out for us that he thinks Hillary Clinton is “crooked”? Or that he thinks Ted Cruz is “lyin'”? In the historical movie “Becket,” the King of England is furious that Thomas Becket continually criticizes the imperious king’s heavy-handed methods. The king says to his henchmen: “Will no one rid me of this annoying meddler?” He didn’t have to mention Becket’s name (nor Biden’s) for the henchmen to know that they were being instructed to find Becket and kill him. (Remember, Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified that Trump, like the king of England, always spoke “in code.” He was clever enough not to actually say the words, but his staff knew exactly what he was asking them to do.)
Part Two:
TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MY GENERATION. We are honored to speak with Walter Shapiro, staff writer for the New Republic, who is covering his eleventh (!) presidential campaign. Shapiro is also a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a lecturer in political science at Yale.
We discuss the issue of generational change in presidential politics. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is an extremely compelling candidate: charming, smart, dynamic, funny. But will that be enough to win the Democratic nomination for president, given that he is so young and inexperienced? The voters may be yearning for “new blood” and “passing the torch.” But at the same time, more voters seem to have more faith in candidates like Bernie, Biden and Warren who are twice Mayor Pete’s age. Should Pete wait until 2024 and accumulate more gravitas?
Then there’s the more amorphous question: Is Buttigieg really “ready,” ready to step into the White House and do the job that the American people need their president to do? Shapiro was impressed with one comment that Buttigieg made in this regard: He recognizes that, as president, he will not be able to do everything that would make our country better, or would make most of the people’s lives better. He will have the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else has. So he will have no choice but to put some very important issues at the bottom of his to-do list.
Will Pete’s wisdom in this regard turn out to be important enough for voters? After all, to heal our country after the Trump debacle, we can’t afford a president who tries to micro-manage everything and therefore who fails to pay enough attention to any one problem actually to solve it. And, of course, the wisdom to set priorities and triage issues will not be good enough if the president exercises bad judgment in triaging. S/he will have to focus most on the issues that are most crucial, and not simply work on holding the most elaborate state dinners.
