November 2 – The Republican Candidates Choose Questions and Questioners; Marco Rubio’s Shady Family Connections; Speculation Over What Caused the Russian Jet to Crash into the Sinai

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the effort by the campaigns of most of the Republican presidential candidates to take control of future debates away from the RNC and essentially decide on what questions are asked by the media and who gets to ask them. Catherine Rampell, an opinion columnist with the Washington Post joins us to discuss her latest op-ed at the Post “The Republicans are Right. We in the Media do Suck” and how, having learned to dodge difficult questions by accusing the moderators of bias, the candidates are now leveraging their clout with the networks because the debates have generated high ratings, to make sure future moderators don’t practice journalism.  

Part 2

Then we look into the rise of Marco Rubio who is widely seen as the winner of the last debate and speak with the award-winning journalist and author Ann Louise Bardach about her profile of Marco Rubio for Politico Magazine “Prodigal Son: Marco Rubio’s complicated Cuban legacy”. We discuss how in a case similar to the current attack by the RNC on Telemundo, “Team Rubio” used the RNC to go after Univision for a report they did on Marco Rubio’s brother-in-law who was a lieutenant to the chain saw-wielding leader of a powerful Miami drug cartel who Al Pacino’s character in the movie “Scarface” is based on.

Part 3

Then finally, as speculation grows over the cause of the high-altitude breakup of a Russian airliner that crashed into the Sinai desert killing all aboard, we examine the no-man’s-land that Egypt’s Sinai has become and speak with Youssef Ibrahim, a political risk consultant who was a senior Middle East correspondent for The New York Times for 18 years. He joins us to discuss the on-going war between the Egyptian Army and various criminal and jihadist groups in the Sinai, including the self-declared Islamic State which has claimed credit for shooting down the Russian passenger jet.