Axis of Reason

Gains for Democrats in the midterm election put Trumpism on the back foot. For Democrats, control of the House comes with the risk of overreach. What's changed since Trump was elected in 2016 and where do both parties go from here? Plus, the discovery of new North Korean missile test sites provides yet another reminder that, in spite of the Trump/Kim bromance, North Korea is as determined as ever to continue developing nuclear weapons.

This past week has seen a string of horrors. A massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; the attempted mass assassination by pipe bomb of Trump critics; and, a pro-Trump activist‘s bizarre, ill-fated scheme to pay women to make phony sexual harassment allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

These all have one thing in common, they are all rooted in the warped reality of post-truth politics. In an imaginary world, in which George Soros masterminds migrant caravans and Democrats are the root of all evil, for a certain kind of lunatic, even horrific atrocities can be justified.

As the caravan approaches and pipe bombs are being sent through the mail crazies are seizing on both stories for their own political benefit and Michael Avenatti has a pretty bad week.

The Trump Administration has made Saudi Arabia the lynchpin of its Middle East strategy. Now, the alleged murder of Jamal Kashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for the Washington Post, threatens to upend the relationship between the United States and a key Middle East ally. Taylor talks with former Time Magazine Senior Correspondent Adam Zagorin about what happened and what Kashoggi’s death means for the geopolitics of the Middle East.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is calling it quits and everyone wants to know who could replace her, why is Russia choosing to remain silent in the midterm, and the Kavanaugh fiasco has splintered the Never Trump movement by separating the principled conservatives and metropolitan Republicans is the Never Trump movement DOA?

The Kavanaugh nomination cotninues to suck all the oxygen out of the room in the news cycle as Senate Democrats continue to try and delay his confirmation despite the fact that Kavanaugh's accusers stories are begining to crack and The New York Times publishes a yuge expose on the secret of Donald Trump's success and despite major hype by most in the media it doesn't seem to have much of an impact with the average American