HLC-109 Trump Gets Tapped

Welcome to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast for March 7, 2017, it’s the Trump Gets Tapped edition of the show. This week, we are brought to you by Casper mattresses: with over twenty thousand reviews and over 4.8 out of 5 stars, it is quickly becoming the internet’s favorite mattress. Go to casper.com/Harvard for your special offer. And we are brought to you by SimpliSafe. Protect your home the smart, wireless way with no long term contract using SimpliSafe’s home security system.

Our first topic this week is – mon dieu! – a tweet from Trump! Will it ever end?! Trump attacks Obama (wait! Isn’t he gone already?). Trump says that Obama ordered during the campaign that Trump’s phone be tapped. With one or two shades of nuance, this is what the BBC and the New York Times already reported, viz., that requests were made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Courts for an electronic surveillance order of the Trump campaign. The left went ballistic. Mika Brzezinski broke into tears. Chuck Schumer said “aha!” The President did the two-step non-denial denial.

But does any of this matter? Is it only smoke and mirrors on both sides? Is it only spite? And even if it is only spite, don’t we conservatives get to indulge in a little spite toward, oh, Loretta Lynch, and Valerie Jarrett, and Koskinen and Hillary and our other favorite Obama villains now that we’ve won?

Next, we will discuss Muslim ban v_2.0. What to make of the new prohibition against travel to the U.S. from seven six predominantly Muslim countries? There are positive, practical mods, such as taking Iraq (alas poor Iraq) off the list and putting a ten day phase-in period into the E.O. The Administration argues incessantly that it *is not* a Muslim ban. But do we really want to back off that initial gambit? Why not actually tell Muslims that there’s, you know, some difficulties we have in the way you guys are approaching this thing we call civilization – even before we get to the Allahu Akbar Boom stuff?

We will have, as usual, our shower thoughts. And our hidden gem for the week is composed by Rolf Løland and performed by Elisabeth Andreassen and Alexander Rybak, entitled Danse mot vår (Dance Toward Spring). You can find (almost) all of our hidden gems going back over two years here.

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This edition of the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast is brought to you by Casper Mattresses:

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