President Trump returned from his Helsinki meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last night only to face a firestorm of criticism. Trump said publicly after his meeting with Putin that he did not believe Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, though he has now changed course.
Tuesday's weekly series is False Profits-A Weekly Look at Wall Street and Corporate Capitalism with Daniel Sankey. Daniel Sankey, a financial policy analyst, join the show.
House Speaker Paul Ryan late last night quashed a rank-and-file effort to force a vote sponsored by a progressive Democrat that would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ryan concluded that, while the bill had no chance of passing, Republicans could be embarrassed if Democrats opposed it in large numbers. The bill was very unpopular with voters. Brian and John speak with Juan José Gutiérrez, the executive director of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition.
Maria Butina, a Russian woman who tried to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin during the 2016 presidential campaign, was arrested by the FBI on Sunday and charged yesterday with three counts of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government. The Justice Department says that Butina is a Russian intelligence officer--or was acting for one-who was tasked with infiltrating important US institutions. She was apparently successful in ingratiating herself with the National Rifle Association. Daniel Lazare, a journalist and author of three books-"The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup," and "America's Undeclared War," joins the show.
Israel further tightened its blockade on Gaza yesterday preventing gas and fuel deliveries through its only commercial crossing. When Israel announced the closing on July 9, it promised to allow food, water, medicine, and fuel. That changed yesterday. Miko Peled, the author of "The General's Son-A Journey of an Israeli in Palestine," and Ariel Gold, a peace activist and the national co-director of Code Pink, joins Brian and John.
The Iranian Government said today that it is preparing to increase the level of uranium enrichment if negotiations with Europe on sanctions fall through. Meanwhile, Iran has filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice to "hold the US accountable for its unlawful reimposition of unilateral sanctions," according to Iran's Foreign Minister. Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of the book "Destroying World Order: US Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11," joins the show.
Elon Musk jumped into a scandal of his own making last week when he called a British cave diver who was instrumental in the rescue of a dozen Thai boy scouts from a flooded cave a "pedophile." When called to task over the comment, he doubled down and repeated it.
Now shares of his company, the automaker Tesla, have fallen 16 percent. And attorneys believe the aggrieved cave diver has a strong defamation case against the billionaire. Brian and John speak with Sam Pizzigati, a veteran journalist and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he specializes in economic inequality issues, and is the author of the new book "The Case for a Maximum Wage."
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