As a caravan of over 4,000 primarily Honduran migrants moves closer to the US-Mexico border, US President Donald Trump threatens to cut aid to Central American nations in an attempt to stop the caravan. Trump on Monday said the US would cut off or "substantially reduce" foreign aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants — many of whom crossed into Mexico illegally — continued its journey toward the US. In a series of tweets Monday, Trump said he had alerted the US Border Patrol and the military that the caravan was a national emergency. He criticized El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico for not stopping the group or otherwise curbing the flow of migrants. Is Trump using this as a way to galvanize his supporters as we inch closer to the midterms?
Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia dates back to the Cold War and has kept nuclear missiles out of Europe for three decades. The arms control treaty banned ground-launched nuclear missiles with ranges from 500 km to 5,500 km. Signed by US President Ronald Reagan and USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, it led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated, and an end to a dangerous standoff between US Pershing and cruise missiles and Soviet SS-20 missiles in Europe. Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton is expected to meet with senior officials in Moscow on Monday and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. According to Russian media report, Gorbachev said it would be a mistake for Trump to pull the US out of the 1987 agreement to eliminate medium-range nuclear missiles. He suggested that doing so could have unforeseen consequences. What are those consequences?
In more Trump news, the administration is considering the elimination of transgender recognition. This move would revoke the civil rights protections for transgender people and require Americans to identify as the gender listed on their birth certificates. If approved, the measure would narrowly define gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government-wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law. It is a potential reversal from the series of policies instituted by the administration of President Barack Obama, which essentially allowed gender to be the choice of individual, which was particularly important for education and health programs run by the federal government. The new definition affects nearly 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
GUESTS:
Carlos Casteneda — Attorney at Garcia & Garcia.
Alice Slater — New York director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War.
Dr. Cleo Manago — Behavioral health and cultural analyst, educator, blogger and national media commentator. Since 1988, he has founded several national organizations, including the AmASSI Centers for Wellness & Culture, promoting diverse Black community health and historical trauma deflection. He is CEO and founder of Black Men's Xchange (BMX), National, a human rights and advocacy organization committed to the well-being and defense of diverse Black males and allies.
We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.com