In this first ever Talking Feds 1-on-1, Harry speaks with congresswoman Val Demings from her Florida home where she’s sheltered in place. After discussing the challenges in Florida to ameliorate the effects of COVID-19, they discuss Demings‘s career in the Orlando Police Department, where she became the first ever female chief, and her recent experience as an impeachment manager. They end with discussion of her inclusion on lists of possible vice presidential candidates for Joe Biden.
COVID-19 & The November Election: A National Crisis in the Making
The National Task Force on Election Crises formed last year to try in a bipartisan effort to anticipate and stave off a series of possible catastrophes for the November 2020 election. Now they are leading the charge to put in place measures to keep the virus from swamping the election or undermining its legitimacy. Three of the most prominent members of the Task Force—Michael Chertoff, Vanita Gupta, and Jim Baker—join Harry to spell out the biggest risks and detail their recommendations.
Tequila & Quaaludes: Trump’s mismanagement of the Coronavirus
Three of the most prominent Feds – David Frum, Matt Miller, and Ashley Parker-- join Harry to dissect the domestic, political, and international consequences of the President’s erratic management of the coronavirus. Does Trump own his early bungling, or will at least his base once again give him a pass? Are his daily conferences and Biden’s isolation working strongly in his favor? And will there be long-terms consequences to the United States’s previous leadership position on the world stage?
Focus on American Universities: Fighting for DACA Dreamers and Coping With COVID-19
A special episode bringing together the Presidents of the University of California, Princeton, and Notre Dame. The Presidents first explain how they are responding to the fears and threats in their institutions posed by COV-19. They then discuss at length their ardent support for the DACA Dreamers program and their opposition to the Trump Administration’s attempts to rescind the program, which the Universities have litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, where it is now pending.
Governments’ Responses to COVID-19: The Good, The Bad, and The Ridiculous
The long-predicted grim effects of COVID-19 began to hit home in earnest, with numbers of cases in the U.S. doubling every 2-3 days, the economy in free fall, supermarket shelves emptied, and whole states and communities ordered to stay at home. Chris Lu, Barb McQuade, Anne Milgram, and Asha Rangappa –former feds with rich and varied experience in governmental responses to emergencies – join Harry to assess the governments’ work to date and to analyze the formidable difficulties that await us.
Corona Cataclysm: a national emergency and a political wild card
Juliette Kayyem, Matt Miller, and Natasha Bertrand join Harry and bring to bear extensive expertise on the emergency management, policy, and political aspects of the Covid-19. We run through testing, turf battles, failures of presidential leadership and more before looking ahead to capacity problems and specific needed measures, closing with an analysis of the likely effects on the presidential race. Lots of rich analysis and nitty-gritty details that will be new to listeners.
Corona Clusterf**k
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) exploded into public consciousness this week, and nobody seems to know how widespread, long-lasting, and serious its impact will be. The Administration was caught flat-footed, having squandered several weeks of preparation time. Dramatic measures such as quarantines and school closings were suddenly in play. National security experts Frank Figliuzzi and Juliette Kayeem and public health law expert Wendy Mariner join Harry to explain just where we are and where we might be headed.
Was the Killing of Qasem Soleimani Legal?
The Trump-ordered drone killing of Qasem Soleimni, Iran’s second ranking political official, raises profound and exquisitely difficult questions of legality under international law and the federal constitution’s war power clauses. A spectacular panel of war powers experts-- Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith, New York Times Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Charlie Savage, and University of Texas Professor Steve Vladeck --join Harry to grapple with these questions.
Ignorance is Strength: Trump’s War on Fact
In the wake of the impeachment trial, the President has gone into overdrive seeking to root out from government anyone seen as personally disloyal, including those who provide truthful information pursuant to legal duty. At the same time, he seems obsessed with trying to scrub away any facts that might reflect poorly on him. Feds Frank Figliuzzi, Matt Miller, and Sam Vinograd analyze the President’s mad assaults in the context of the Stone sentencing and the ouster of Joseph Maguire.
Stone Cold Disaster at DOJ
The Feds convene inside the LA office of Congressman Ted Lieu, a critical figure in the impeachment effort from his post on the House Judiciary Committee, at the end of a week of scandal and tumult at the DOJ. Congressman Lieu, former AUSA Prof. Laurie Levenson, and Atlantic writer Todd Purdum join Harry to discuss the cross currents of DOJ conduct, which ended the week with a Barr interview pushing back on Trump’s tweets and the announcement that Trump enemy Andy McCabe would not be prosecuted.
