Listen: Trump’s Versailles Moment; East Wing Demolished for Ballroom as Food Stamps Are Zeroed Out
As Donald Trump looks to build ballrooms, the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week and the USDA says it is set to terminate the Food Stamp program that over 40 million Americans rely upon as of Nov. 1st.
By Bob Hennelly
On this episode of “We Decide: America at the Crossroads with Jenna Flanagan, our reporter roundtable regulars, D.C.-based investigative reporter Dave Levinthal and Laura Jedeed, discuss Donald Trump's Versailles style of governing and his Caribbean hot war on suspicious small boats.
While President Trump is feted in Asia, Aljazeera reports the UN's Palestinian refugee agency says Israel is continuing to deny entry to its global staff and aid supplies into Gaza in defiance of an International Court of Justice ruling.
Hamas has stepped up its search for the remaining bodies of Israeli captives as required by the Trump peace plan that the White House brokered with the region's Arab nations.
For the returning Palestinian families, unexploded Israeli munitions remain a significant danger particularly for children.
Hunger and malnutrition continue to loom large in the battered region with the UN warning that with the onset of winter and dropping temperatures, basic shelter needs are extreme. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced and at least one and a half-million people urgently in need of emergency shelter assistance.
Back in September, the International Association of Genocide Scholars found that Isreal's actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide, a judgement confirmed by two leading Israeli human rights groups including Physicians for Human Rights-Isreal.
In the B Block we speak with political scientist Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics and former press secretary for former Gov. Jim McGreevey. Micah handicaps for us the bellwether gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia where Donald Trump's name is not on the ballot but he looms large. Jenna also asks Micah about his former boss, former Gov. Jim McGreevey's bid at a comeback with his run for mayor of Jersey City.
In the C Block, we check in with Norman Siegel, one of America's leading civil liberties lawyers, and Amol Sinha, the executive director of the ACLU-NJ, about the Mahmoud Khalil case, the Columbia University green card holder that the Trump administration attempted to deport because he protested the genocide in Gaza.
Siegel and Sinha describe the serious threat to civil liberties and constitutional norms posed by President Trump's doubling down on his mass deportations and political prosecution of elected officials like Rep. Lamonica McIver, who was falsely charged with assaulting a federal immigration officer back on May 9, outside a private immigration jail in Newark.
In the D block, our Pacifica Affiliates feature this reporters' notebook on how actions by the Trump administration are causing uncertainty about local public education for students, educators, and communities at large. Ursula Ruedenberg at Pacifica Network, brings two stories from local school districts, in Florida and Iowa. Klaus Obermite at Pacifica affiliate WSLR in Sarasota Florida, Laura Belin in Des Moines Iowa, and Jason Bennell in Des Moines, report.
Listen to the entire show here.