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Welcome to Talking Feds. A round table that brings together prominent former federal officials

and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important legal and political topics of the day.

I'm Harry Litman. Happy Memorial Day. Remember how the country was going to be opened up and

raring to go by Easter? Well, here's where things stand as we hit the traditional beginning of summer.

The country is quickly verging on 100,000 deaths, about 30% of the worldwide total. A new study by

the Columbia School of Public Health estimates that over a third of those US deaths would have been

avoided and we not did that for so long before initiating social distancing. The disease and death

toll moreover is much more severe among people of color. African Americans and Latinos are about

three times as likely as whites to know someone who has died of the virus. On the economic side,

we're approaching 40 million jobless claims and record mortgage default rates. Top economist

advised that we are in such a deep economic trough that we may never fully dig ourselves out.

That's a snapshot of today, but this week also saw the country looking backwards and ahead.

Backwards toward the endless Groundhog Day replay of the Michael Flynn case and the circumstances

of his lying in January of 2017 to the FBI and forwards to November and the election as the Trump

administration began to show its playbook for November with allegations of voter fraud in Michigan

and elsewhere. To discuss these and other events, we have a terrific panel of not just returning,

...