The DSR Network

The divide between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and centrists has dogged the party for years and hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. Thanks to equal parts good planning, good will and the urgency of the threat America faces, that divide has been minimized this year with Biden working closely with progressive leaders like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC. The question i...

The Republican Party not only produced the corrupt, failed presidency of Donald Trump, but it has supported Trump at every turn. What is to be done with a party that embraces a president who is a traitor, a con man, a racist, a serial abuser of women? We sat down with two notable former Republicans, Washington Post columnist Max Boot and political scientist and commentator Tom Nichols to discuss w...

The two defining crises of the past 40 years in the US have been the 9/11 attacks and the COVID crisis. In both cases, government lies and bad government policies made matters much worse. In both cases, hundreds of thousands died as a result. The wars that resulted from 9/11 still fester. And as for the COVID crisis, we could see the number of dead in the US double before the end of the year...bec...

Donald Trump doesn't think much of America's military and he thinks even less of its members who sacrificed their lives or freedom for the country. And, now he wants another four years as commander-in-chief of that military. And he's got a shot at getting re-upped for another tour. Because...what the fuck, America? We discuss the latest outrages with Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institut...

As former U.S. Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel says during this special podcast, when he interviewed Putin several years ago, the Russian president cited the collapse of the USSR as the greatest tragedy of the past century. And, as Richard notes, Putin has been on the attack against what he perceives as those that brought Russia down ever since. This led to his support for Donald Trump in...

After the lawlessness and lies of the GOP convention it is clearer than ever that another term in office for Donald Trump would be devastating for democracy in America. And given the willingness of the GOP to violate the law and the fragility of political leads in times like these, you would have to be, in the words of our regular Rosa Brooks, deranged to think Trump might not achieve victory in N...

Every four years a heated debate occurs among foreign policy and national security nerds about why foreign policy and national security just don't seem to be so important in our presidential campaigns. But 2020 will be different right? After all, Russia attacked our last elections, a global pandemic and economic crisis has paralyzed the country, China is a rising threat...wherever you look there a...

There is one and only one major hoax associated with the relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 elections. That's the hoax hoax, Trump's denials that he worked with Russian intelligence to get elected. This week's report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should finally set that hoax to rest. The bipartisan report not only documents in detail how...

As many US observers watched brave Belarussians take to the streets to protest the rigged election engineered by their autocratic president, they wondered aloud on social media whether the US would soon be going through the same thing. We too have an autocratic president. He too depends on the support of Vladimir Putin. He too has no respect for democracy and is working to rig our upcoming electio...

With the president making even more outrageous remarks about his desire to impede voting by mail and the GOP mobilizing more efforts to spread disinformation, it is clear the weeks before the election will be contentious and American democracy is at risk. But who are you gonna call if the guys who are supposed to be protecting that democracy are the greatest threats to it? We discuss this and the...

We summarize a busy and disturbing week of world events with a bit of free-association between Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law Center, Kori Schake of AEI and David Sanger of the New York Times. It takes us from Bill Barr suggesting Democrats were adherents of French enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the reality that Barr is much more a Hobbesian to other Hobbesians from Minsk to Hon...

In this special Agenda 2021 episode, we bring together three of America's top expert commentators on the COVID crisis to discuss where we are in the crisis, what may impact it between now and the election and then what the first 100 days health policy priorities for a Joe Biden Administration ought to be. Pulitzer Prize Winner Laurie Garrett, former Baltimore Health Commissioner and practicing ER...

America has had disputed election results in the past. 2016 comes to mind. So does 2000. So does 1876. But, in all these cases and with all the instances of trying to fiddle with democracy that have marked our history, there has never been a case where the President of the United States and his entire executive branch seemed so committed to rigging the election in their favor or, short of that, to...

In Russia, they refer to Trump as being "theirs." In France, the president muses about how Europe should prepare for an America that is no longer an ally. In China, they know they are gaining with every setback the U.S. faces. But what if Trump is re-elected? What will it mean for the rule of law in America? Will Bill Barr be a kind of Prime Minister of a Trump Junta? Will it be the end for NATO a...

In a remarkable 50 year career in government that has seen him as Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of Management and Budget and in Congressional leadership, Leon Panetta has seen it all. But, he tells us in an exclusive Agenda 2021 interview, he has never seen anything like the situation we're in now. We discuss Trump's COVID leadership...

Thanks to his trusty personal defense attorney Bill Barr and his defender in the Senate Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump has gotten away with betraying his country, enriching himself at the expense of the public, sidestepping national security rules, quashing his opponents and rewarding enemies of the US around the world. But, for now, we have to view that as water under the bridge. An election is co...

Commentator and political pro Zerlina Maxwell's book "The End of White Politics" could not be better timed. It comes in the summer of BLM and COVID when America's racial inequities and their costs could not be clearer. But it also comes as America begins a 25 year transition to becoming a society in which whites are in the minority for the first time in our history. The GOP is seeking to play on t...

No one has provided the insight into the pathologies that define Donald Trump and his presidency like Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump. Her book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" is a brilliantly written, harrowing tale of familial dysfunction and how it produced the most corrupt president in U.S. history. Join David Sanger of the New York Times and Ros...

Viruses occur in nature. So do epidemics. But where most of the world's leading economies managed the COVID crisis well enough to control it? America under Trump made error after error. What went wrong? Who's to blame other than Trump? Where will this all lead? We discuss with experts Dr. Kavita Patel, former top Obama health advisor, Jeremy Konyndyk, also a former advisor on epidemics to the Obam...

Any Democratic president would immediately work to reverse the damage that the Trump Administration has done to climate and environmental policies in the U.S. But there are signs that a Biden Administration may represent a major change on these policies even when contrasted with its Democratic predecessors. The climate crisis has worsened, a rising generation sees climate as a top priority, Biden...

Some national governments are clusterfucks. Others are omnishambles. But a rare few are both. Is Donald Trump's America the capital of omnishambolic clusterfuckery? Boris Johnson's UK? Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil? Do really bad leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi have a shot at topping this league table? And from what part of the world will come the big international story that s...

The Trump Administration and its allies in key statehouses are suppressing vital data about the spread of COVID. Without that data, tens of thousands of more Americans will die. Crimes are being committed. Who will be held responsible? And who, if anyone has a plan to get us out of this rapidly worsening situation? We discuss with Pultizer Prize-winning author Laurie Garrett and former Obama Admin...

Rep. Anthony Brown, (D-Maryland), Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, with a distinguished military career behind him, joins our regulars to discuss how the military is responding to major challenges before it, from its need to address major diversity problems in its ranks to the current movement to rename military bases currently bearing the names of the Confederate leaders to th...

The Supreme Court rulings on Trump's taxes put a stake through the heart of the absurd idea that U.S. presidents had absolute immunity and underscored the right of states to prosecute a sitting president. While they left some avenues for further delay for Trump and his battery of lawyers, it is now clear that sooner or later prosecutors will have the chance to review the president's financial reco...

This episode of our Agenda 2021 series is a one-on-one conversation with General James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence and prior to that Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. We discuss President Trump's pattern of placing Russian interests ahead of our own, his attacks on the foundations of our national security, why a second Trump term will be "like the first one on ster...