Are we failing to put Trump and Biden concerns into proper context?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump made waves with a speech at a campaign rally in South Carolina last week. The former president recalled an encounter with a leader of a NATO country, where he threatened to withhold U.S. protection from Russia if the country didn’t make adequate financial contributions to the alliance. Is it an example of the leading Republican candidate’s flair for the dramatic? Are there more serious concerns about the United States’ credibility with its allies?

Special Counsel Robert Hur completed a report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents outside of the White House. The report found that Biden committed no wrongdoing, but included concerning statements on the president’s memory and mental sharpness. Democrats have pushed back on Hur’s analysis of the president’s cognition. Skepticism surrounding the age and ability of the president is nothing new. If his age isn’t the weakness critics claim it is, why is the party spending so much time defending it?

For our 50 states series, we turn to Georgia, where a conservative civil rights group is suing a venture capital fund aimed at increasing women of color’s access to capital. This shifts the affirmative action debate from the classroom to the boardroom. Can we address the difficult realities of disadvantage without focusing on race?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to left right and center everybody. I'm David Green. Well, Donald Trump is pretty
0:06.1	well known for his off-the-cuff comments at rallies and campaign events. Some of them are newsworthy,
0:12.3	some of them are a little more ridiculous, some both I think we could say.
0:17.0	But the ears of many here in the United States and also abroad perked up when Trump made these comments recently.
0:23.7	He was talking about leaders of NATO countries.
0:26.3	They asked me that question.
0:27.5	One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said,
0:30.9	well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?
0:36.1	I said, you didn't pay, you're delinquent?
0:39.6	He said, yes, let's say that happened.
0:42.1	No, I would not protect you in fact I would encourage
0:44.8	them to do whatever the hell they want you got to pay you got to pay your bills
0:48.7	sounded like he was encouraging Russia to do whatever the hell they want to this NATO country if they had not paid
0:54.8	their bills.
0:57.1	Trump was saying these things as he explained his opposition to a 95 billion dollar foreign
1:01.7	aid package that included funding for both Ukraine and Israel.
1:06.5	So is this just Trumpian absurd hyperbole or should we anticipate an historic radical potentially dangerous change in
1:15.0	U.S. foreign policy if he's elected or maybe it's somewhere in between.
1:19.8	Well let's start there.
1:21.0	We have our left right and center panel back together again.
1:24.8	Sarah Isger, senior editor at the dispatch is back after a week off and Moelaith the
1:29.6	executive director at Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service.
	...

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