December 8 – The National Security Implications of Trump’s Bigotry; The Impact of Trump’s Hate Speech on American Muslims; A Right Wing Challenge to the One Person One Vote Core of American Democracy

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the national security implications of the anti-Muslim Islamophobia expressed by Donald Trump on Monday at a rally on the USS Yorktown where he called for “a total complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and went on to say that we are going to have more 9/11’s unless we ban Muslims from America. Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration and author of “A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction” joins us to discuss the vital role American Muslims play in the U.S. Armed Forces and the aid and comfort that Trump’s attacks on Muslims are providing daesh, the self-declared Islamic State.

Part 2

Then we look into the impact that Trump’s hate speech is having on American Muslims and speak with Ambassador Islam Siddiqui, the highest ranking American Muslim in the Clinton and Obama Administrations who is the President and cofounder of the American Muslim Institution. We discuss the latest Public Policy Polling survey that finds Trump is far and away the frontrunner in North Carolina where 67% of his backers want a national database on Muslims, 62% believe Trump’s lies about Muslims celebrating 9/11 and 51% want to shut down mosques while 44% want Islam outlawed.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the arguments before the Supreme Court today that challenge the very underpinning of the one person, one vote core of American democracy.  Elizabeth Wydra, the Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center who was in the Supreme Court today joins us to explain the consequences of a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the same conservative activists in a number of Supreme Court cases brought by Ed Blum, that would diminish the clout of urban voters and increase the power of rural, usually Republican voters.