President Donald Trump in remarks to reporters on Wednesday refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose the election. A reporter claimed that “people were rioting” but didn’t clarify that militant protests were largely peaceful and were in response to police violence and impunity. Still, to the question of whether he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump refused to make a commitment. Some Republican lawmakers who have remained staunchly loyal to Trump managed to push back against his assertions. In a terse tweet, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell wrote, “The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.” Senator Lindsey Graham said on Fox News, “If Republicans lose we will accept the result. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Joe Biden, I will accept that result.” In invoking the Supreme Court Graham implied that the court would decide the election rather than voters. There will either be a 5-3 or a 6-3 conservative majority on the court between now and November 3rd. 

Soon before Trump made his controversial comments The Atlantic magazine published an alarming write-up about ways in which the Trump campaign could steal the 2020 election. One section stood out where journalist Barton Gellman writes: 

“According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.”

Such an approach is based on the fact that Presidential races are decided by the electoral college system and Trump won the electoral college in 2016 while losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Now a new poll shows 61% of Americans support abolishing the electoral college.

Meanwhile an open letter published by 489 former or retired national security officials have cast their support for Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden. Among the signatories is Gen. Paul J. Selva who the New York Times explained is “a retired four-star Air Force general with 40 years in uniform, served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Obama and Trump from 2015 until his retirement in July 2019.”

In other news, protests have raged in Louisville, Kentucky after the state announced

FEATURING LAUREN FRENCH – As unprecedented wildfires continue to rage across the West Coast of the U.S. and fierce record-breaking hurricanes pummel the Gulf and parts of the East Coast, next week’s Presidential debate will play out as though the problem of climate change simply does not exist. Fox News host Chris Wallace who is the moderator of the first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic Nominee Joe Biden, has released his list of debate topics. Nowhere on it is the issue of the changing climate and its impact on people and the environment. Yet polls show Americans increasingly see climate change as a defining issue of our time, even across party lines. 

Lauren French, Senior Communications Director at Climate Power 2020. 

FEATURING RICHARD WOLFF – If you believe President Donald Trump, he was set to sail to reelection this November until the coronavirus pandemic stuck the nation and caused an economic collapse. Millions of Americans have been thrown out of work and Congress cannot even agree on resuming modest unemployment benefits. If our economic and political system was so fragile that a pandemic of the sort that government officials knew was coming was enough to throw the nation into disarray, then perhaps the problem is the system and not the virus. That is at the heart of a new book by my guest Richard Wolff. 

Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has taught at Yale University and at the City College of the City University of New York. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York City and the host of the weekly radio and TV program Economic Update. His previous books published include Understanding Socialism (2019) and Understanding Marxism (2018). His latest book is called The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself. 

The body of late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in repose at the U.S. Supreme Court this week as hundreds of mourners filed by to pay their respects. The 87-year old will become the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol this Friday. Her colleague Chief Justice John Roberts eulogized her calling her a “rock star.”  Dismissing her final wish to be replaced after a new President is selected, President Donald Trump is rushing ahead to announce his nominee for the GOP-dominated Senate to vote on via a timeline so rushed it would be unprecedented. Trump on Tuesday suggested that a new conservative justice replacing Ginsburg could benefit his reelection attempt. A new poll found that about half of all Americans want the Senate to wait until a new presidential term in order to replace Ginsburg’s seat while only 36% say Trump should move forward immediately. 

Some Democrats are seriously considering packing the courts – which means a new Democratic President adding more seats to the Supreme Court in order to restore balance. But others shot down the idea. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden has avoided addressing the issue. Meanwhile Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are considering appealing their case over return dates for mail-in ballots to the Supreme Court. Whether or not Ginsburg is replaced, conservatives currently have a majority of 5 to 3 and the Pennsylvania case is one of several election-related cases that could come before an 8-seat court in the next few weeks. Also in Pennsylvania the state-level Supreme Court just ruled that authorities should discard so-called “naked ballots” or ballots that have been returned without the “secrecy envelope.” An estimated 100,000 ballots could be tossed out in a state that Trump won in 2016 by 44,000 votes. And in Florida, former Democratic Presidential candidate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg raised more than $16 million for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which pays off court-related fines of former felons so that they are eligible to vote. 

In other election news polls in states that are solidly Republicans show Biden performing competitively. In analyzing numerous polls the New York Times’ Nate Cohn concluded that in states like Iowa with white-majority populations, “Joe Biden seems to be securing large, broad gains among white voters.” Cindy McCain, the widow of Republican Senator John McCain formally endorsed Biden.

FEATURING GREG PALAST – President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to win the November 3rd 2020 election at all costs. He has demanded a delay in the election, claimed in easily proven lie that voting by mail will lead to widespread voter fraud—except magically in the state of Florida which he sees as crucial to winning. He has cast so much doubt months ahead of the election that many are convinced he has already won the 2020 race by sheer force of will. 

Greg Palast, filmmaker and investigative reporter, whose news-breaking stories appear on BBC Television, The Guardian and Rolling Stone Magazine. His books include “Billionaires & Ballot Bandits” and “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” His latest book is How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters.

** This segment was originally broadcast on August 5, 2020.

Republican Senators lined up behind President Donald Trump in his bid to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with an ultraconservative younger justice with just 42 days left before the Presidential election. In spite of his strong critiques of Trump—which has earned him the ire of the President—Republican Senator Mitt Romney threw his lot behind his party and like most other GOP Senators, agreed to a confirmation vote. In remarks to reporters Romney said liberals ought to get used to a court that tilts right-ward. According to Associated Press, “No court nominee in U.S. history has been considered so close to a presidential election.” Yet GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, who famously 4 years ago argued against filing a Supreme Court seat in an election year, has promised to confirm a justice ahead of the November 3rd race. His rival Democrat Jaime Williams is neck-in-neck with him in the latest poll.  

Trump says he will announce his Supreme Court pick on Saturday and on Monday met with a woman who is considered his top contender: Amy Coney Barrett. Coney Barrett is a federal appeals court judge who faced a ferocious battle in 2017 over her religious fundamentalist views. She is a member of a fringe rightwing church called People of Praise that reportedly inspired author Margaret Atwood to write her dystopian fiction novel The Handmaid’s Tale in which women are the sex slaves of men. Coney Barrett’s church according to media sources believes that men have authority over their wives. The church is also strictly anti-abortion which would likely mean that the constitutional right to an abortion could be overturned if Coney Barrett were to be a Supreme Court justice. 

Meanwhile, the so-called pro-life movements in the U.S. have remained silent on the staggering loss of lives as 200,000 deaths linked to the coronavirus are marked. The number means that one in every five deaths globally linked to the virus are American. At a rally in Ohio on Monday evening Trump claimed that the virus, “affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing.”  But new research suggests that reopening schools contributed in large part to the resurgence of the virus. According to the Wall Street Journal, “in-person classes led to thousands of additional cases each day in the U.S.” Additionally, “an extra 3,200 cases a day occurred in the U.S. that likely wouldn’t have happened had schools kept classes online.” And, while there continues to be a shortage of masks and some medical equipment in the U.S., it was revealed that the Pentagon spent millions of tax doll...

FEATURING COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER – The second woman to ever serve on the United States Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died, shocking the nation. After a lengthy battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer, the feminist icon and trail blazing jurist passed away at 87, leaving behind one dying wish: that her replacement would be chosen until after a new President was chosen. 

But within hours of her death Republican Senators began expressing glee and planning a replacement to be voted on a lightning speed. Typically, it takes several months for a President to pick a nominee and for the Senate to hold hearings and a vote. The election is less than 50 days away.

Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science at Brown University. He is the author of When the State Speaks, What Should It Say: How Democracies Can Protect Expression and Promote Equality, as well as The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents. His latest book, published September 8th is Decisions and Dissents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Selection. 

FEATURING SPENCER WOODMAN – A massive trove of leaked documents from the U.S. government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) shows that big banks filed so-called “suspicious activities reports” on trillions of dollars worth of transactions linked to corrupt regimes, mobsters, and international criminals, relying on the U.S. government to not enforce regulations. As a result the banks engaged in what can only be characterized as massive money laundering schemes that have now been laid bare. Among the high profile clients of these big banks is President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort. The so-called FinCEN files have laid bare the failure of the U.S. government to counter the money laundering schemes—failure so staggering as to amount to complicity. The “Suspicious Activities Reports” or SARs were first leaked to Buzzfeed News which then shared them with the International Consortium of Journalists whose staff worked for months to analyze and make sense of them. 

Spencer Woodman, reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at the age of 87. After a lengthy battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer the barrier breaking feminist icon who became the second woman ever to be appointed to the nation’s highest court passed away on Friday sparking shock across the U.S. Her granddaughter Clara Spera related that days before her death Ginsburg dictated the following statement to her: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” There were vigils mourning her passing held over the weekend all over the country and the Women’s March put out a call for gatherings to be held in her honor at local courthouses. Ginsburg’s death sparks a major political fight just weeks ahead of the already-anxiety-inducing presidential election on November 3rd. 

Within hours of her passing Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell released a statement saying, “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” which in turn led to a trending of the hashtag #HypocriteMitch. McConnell prevented a vote on President Obama’s pick to replace the late Antonin Scalia saying an outgoing president should not be allowed to pick a justice. On Friday Trump remarked about the late Justice, “an amazing woman who led an amazing life,” but by Monday Trump was already promoting a conspiracy theory that Ginsburg did not say what she is attributed to having said on her deathbed. “[M]aybe she did, and maybe she didn’t,” he told Fox and Friends. On Monday Trump announced that he would choose a nominee to replace Ginsburg by Friday or Saturday of this week. 

In order to confirm his nominee to the court Trump needs a simple majority in the Senate and currently Republicans control the chamber 53 to 47. That means in order for Trump to lose a confirmation vote for his nominee, 3 Republican Senators are needed to join Democrats in voting no, but in practicality 4 are needed in order to override what would likely be Vice President Mike Pence’s vote as a tie-breaker. So far only Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said they oppose a vote this year while Senator Chuck Grassley said before Ginsburg’s death that he would oppose a vote. The New York Times counted 29 other Republican Senators whose views are not yet clear. Early polls find that a slim majority of Americans do not want Trump to replace Ginsburg which would lead to a 6-3 conservative majority on the court for years. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden urged Republican lawmakers to “follow your conscience” and not confirm a replacement this year.

FEATURING MEHRDAD AZEMUN – The question of how to convince supporters of President Donald Trump that he is a liar and not interested in anyone but himself is one that we have tackled many times on this program over the last few years. It is one that has consumed millions of Americans, especially now with the November 3rd election just over the horizon. 

The activist group People’s Action recently conducted what they called “the first-ever deep canvassing political persuasion experiment,” and found that its results were “groundbreaking.” According to People’s Action its political experiment had, “a substantial impact on decreasing Trump’s vote margin, estimated to be 102 times more effective per person than the average presidential persuasion program.”

Read the report HERE.

Mehrdad Azemun, Senior Strategist with People’s Action.