(9/11/19) On December 7, 2016, “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” debuted on WBAI. Through 127 episodes, we did our best to go beyond the bluster coming from the White House to help you figure out the concrete ways that our country has changed in the Donald Trump era. For our final show, we take your calls on how the peace movement has changed in the wake of the resistance and Jesse shares some exciting news about his new series covering the 2020 election, slated to premiere on WBAI in November.

TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent

Series Finale: How did President Trump change the post-9/11 peace movement? (call-in special)

(9/4/19) Of all the consequences of climate change that we know about, one that rarely gets mentioned is its affect on the affordable housing crisis in America. Back in June, President Trump, who has denied the existence of global warming throughout his presidency, signed an executive order aimed at “tearing down red tape in order to build more affordable housing.” But as reported in Teresa Wiltz’s article for The Pew Charitable Trusts Statewide blog, “Climate Change Is Making the Affordable Housing Crunch Worse” the administration’s refusal to engage in efforts to reduce carbon emissions is creating larger issues than government red tape to contend with when addressing the homeless crisis. On this week’s TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent on WBAI, Teresa Wiltz talks about why climate change is making low-cost housing so hard to find.

What does climate change means for the affordable housing crisis? (Teresa Wiltz)

(8/28/19)On Monday, attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration in the hopes of blocking a sweeping new rule that would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to indefinitely hold migrant families in detention. But will it work? On this week’s TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent on WBAI, immigration reporter for Reuters Mica Rosenberg unpacks this blue state attempt to block President Trump’s border policy in the courts.

Can 19 states stop the administration from detaining migrant children indefinitely? (Mica Rosenberg)

(8/21/19) Veterans of the US Armed Forces will have a harder time receiving green cards than currently active service members, according to a new report from Yeganeh Torbati, Isaac Arnsdorf and Dara Lind of ProPublica “‘No Comment’: Emails Show the VA Took No Action to Spare Veterans From a Harsh Trump Immigration Policy.” According to this exclusive report, since Veterans Affairs (VA) officials declined to step in to exempt veterans from a Trump administration policy denying green cards to a larger number of low-income immigrants, vets will not be entitled to any of the exemptions open to currently enlisted military personnel. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Yeganeh Torbati considers what the reporting of her and her ProPublica colleagues tells us about the way the VA is being run in the Trump administration.

Are veterans more likely to be denied green cards than active service members? (Yeganeh Torbati)

(8/14/19) On Aug. 12, the Trump administration announced plans to change how it how it enforces the Endangered Species Act, the landmark 1974 law believed to have rescued the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Ben Lefebvre, author of the POLITICO article “Trump administration eases endangered species rules,” helps break down what this new interpretation will mean for the effort to save threatened animals from being wiped off the planet.

What will reinterpreting the Endangered Species Act mean for threatened animals? (Ben Lefebvre)

(7/24/19) With all eyes trained on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress, we take a look at the status of the issue that got us here—Russian interference in the 2016 election. According to Adam Piore, author of the July 23 Newsweek article “Russia Is Using Cold War Strategy to Undermine the Faith of Americans in the 2020 Election—Will It Work?” the strategy being deployed ahead of the 2020 presidential election has disturbing echoes of 2016. While a July 18 Brennan Center for Justice report entitled “Federal Funding Needs for State Election Security” highlights dangerous vulnerabilities in the voting systems of six states. Join us for a conversation on the state of US elections today with Adam Piore of Newsweek and Christopher R. Deluzio, a co-author of the Brennan Center study, in this episode of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI.

Will Russia hack our election systems again in 2020? (Christopher R. Deluzio and Adam Piore)

(7/17/19) Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly told attendees at a recent fundraising retreat in Chicago that he does not attempt to control the President’s tweeting, time or family. Instead, according to the July 15 Washington Post article “‘His own fiefdom’: Mulvaney builds ‘an empire for the right wing’ as Trump’s chief of staff,” he is building his own power base in Washington through a formerly inactive White House office called the Domestic Policy Council. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Lisa Rein, a reporter covering federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump administration for the Washington Post and one of the co-writers of the article, helps break down Mulvaney’s efforts to cultivate his own GOP power base and considers what that could mean for US policy.

Is the President's chief of staff building his own right-wing empire in the White House? (Lisa Rein)

(7/10/19) On July 1, when ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson revealed the existence of a secret Facebook group of 9,500 Border Patrol agents containing posts joking about migrant deaths and illustrations of the President sexually assaulting a Congresswoman, the reaction was swift and severe. Acting secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan promised to hold accountable “any employee found to have compromised the public’s trust,” as reported by Vox, and Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, called for a formal investigation. But according to reporting by Ted Hesson and Cristiano Lima of POLITICO, the existence of the group had been an open secret among Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials for years. This week on “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Ted Hesson discusses what we know about the now-defunct group, who knew about it at CBP and what it tells us about the prevailing culture among Border Patrol agents.

Is there a culture of racism and misogyny among Border Patrol agents? (Ted Hesson)

(7/3/19) With the third acting defense secretary President Trump has placed in the position within the past month looking like he will be forced to temporarily resign according to CNN and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo playing an increasingly active role in interactions with longtime US adversaries like Iran and North Korea, it can be difficult to determine exactly where US foreign policy ends and military policy begins. In this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Adam Weinstein, national security editor for The New Republic, helps untangle who has the President’s ear in the thornier areas of international relations.

Who has the most influence with President Trump on foreign policy? (Adam Weinstein)

(6/26/19) With major developments in both domestic and international news in recent days, it’s easy to forget that the US is currently engaged in a trade war with China. Donald Trump (along with 19 other world leaders) is heading to Osaka, Japan for the G-20 summit on Wednesday. The President has threatened additional tariffs if Chinese President Xi Jinping isn’t willing to meet with him at the summit. In this episode of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Soumaya Keynes, US economics editor for The Economist and co-host of the “Trade Talks” podcast, examines the effect President Trump’s tariffs on China are having there and in the US.

Is the U.S. trade war with China achieving President Trump's goals? (Soumaya Keynes)

(6/19/19) On June 13, two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman were damaged after an explosion hit both ships above the waterline. The US government was quick to blame Iran for the attack on the two vessels—The Kokuka Courageous, a tanker owned by Japan and en route to Singapore and The Front Altair, a Norwegian-owned tanker on its way to Taiwan. “This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters at the State Department, as reported by Robin Wright of the New Yorker. And while both President Trump and Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani say they do not want war, the inflammatory statements coming from their administrations appear to be at odds with that goal. In this episode of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Julian Borger, world affairs editor for the Guardian, breaks down what is happening to relations between the two countries and examines how the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal could affect the outcome.

Where is the conflict between the U.S. and Iran over 2 oil tanker attacks headed? (Julian Borger)

(6/12/19) As congressional Democrats clash over whether or not to impeach the President following the controversial release of the Mueller report, there appears to be one politician surprisingly supportive of the idea—President Donald Trump. In his June 11 article “Trash-talking Trump aims to weaponize impeachment,” senior White House reporter for POLITICO Darren Samuelsohn spoke to a dozen intimates of the President in an attempt find out if and why he appears to be in favor of being impeached. On this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Darren helps break down why the President and could be genuinely rooting for impeachment proceedings to start up in the House.

Does President Trump want congressional Democrats to impeach him? (Darren Samuelsohn)

(6/5/19)On May 30, President Trump announced plans to enact a 5 percent tariff on “all goods coming into our country from Mexico” in retribution for what he described in a Twitter post as that nation’s role in the “illegal immigration problem.” The President threatened to tack on an additional 5 percent for every month Mexico refuses to engage in border enforcement deemed acceptable by the administration, with the tariffs topping off at 25 percent if the dispute could not be settled by October. Many Republican lawmakers, long seen as being from the party of free trade, were clearly not happy. Senate Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) called the move “a misuse of presidential tariff authority and contrary to congressional intent.” Republican senator James Lankford of Oklahoma told POLITICO that the Trump administration is “is trying to use tariffs to solve every problem but HIV and climate change.” But will their displeasure translate into action in Congress? On this week’s “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Amber Phillips, a reporter for the Washington Post political blog The Fix and author of the June 4 article “Republicans’ opposition to Trump’s Mexico tariffs comes at great political risk,” talks about the storm brewing over tariffs and whether it could destroy the nearly unanimous support the President has enjoyed from his party throughout his term.

Do Trump’s proposed tariffs on Mexico go further than GOP lawmakers are willing to? (Amber Phillips)

(5/29/19) On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to what the Washington Post described as a “compromise on a restrictive Indiana abortion law,” allowing the state to regulate disposal of the “remains” of an abortion. And though the court upheld a lower court decision to blocking the part of the law banning abortions based on a fetus's sex, race or disability, nine other states have passed similar laws restricting a woman’s ability to have an abortion. Many state lawmakers (like those in Indiana) have admitted that the new restrictions on abortion are meant to force the Supreme Court, presumably now a more conservative body with President Trump’s two additions to the high court, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, to overturn or undermine Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision protecting access to a safe and legal abortion. In this installment of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Staci Fox, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast and an outspoken critic of the new state laws limiting women’s reproductive rights will discuss what this means for women in the affected states and beyond.

What does a wave of new state laws restricting abortion mean for Roe v. Wade? (Staci Fox)

(5/8/19) Late last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether to allow a question on the 2020 census that asks whether the person filling out the form is a US citizen. As observed by the New York Times’s Adam Lipak and others, the five conservative Supreme Court justices appear to be leaning towards allowing the controversial move, reportedly the brainchild of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In this installment of “TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent” on WBAI, Wennie Chin and Paul Westrick of the New York Immigration Coalition, one of the original plaintiffs in the case before the Supreme Court, talk about what a citizenship question would mean for the census and the country.

What would a citizenship question mean for the 2020 census? (Wennie Chin, Paul Westrick)

"TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent" airs live Wednesdays at 6:30pm on WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio New York, streaming at WBAI.org. Join us each week as we take a deep dive on a different aspect of the Donald Trump administration in each episode.

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TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent

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