I'm Sarah Kensier, the author of the best-selling books, The View from Flyover Country, and Hiding in Plain Sight.

I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker, and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller,

Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine.

And this is Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the United States and rising

autocracy around the world. And that autocracy is on display this week with Joe Biden on his world tour and his summit with Putin,

which we believe we will be covering in a special episode later this week.

So Joe Biden has proclaimed to our allies that, quote, America is back.

But what does America is back even mean? Back from being an overt

mafia state run by a sociopathic career criminal Kremlin asset? Sure. Removed from the

conditions that allowed a sociopathic career criminal Kremlin asset to become president in the

first place? Not so much. In case you haven't been

paying attention to Trump crime cult accomplice, Merrick Garland, the mafia state is still in place

and thriving, and we'll get more into that later. But first, some basic questions about America's

position on the world stage. If I were one of our allies, I would not

trust the U.S. for shit. Would I be relieved that Trump was out? Of course. But would I believe that the

U.S. took the threat of Trump seriously? Or that it takes the threat of autocracy seriously

and the threat of transnational organized crime seriously? No, not based on the Biden

administration's actions so far. The refusal to enforce accountability for Trump administration

crimes is not just a domestic crisis, but a foreign relations crisis. It is a crisis of trust. Think about this from the

perspective of a foreign country looking to work with the United States. What message does it

send when a government won't investigate an attack on its own capital by seditionists who are now

again announcing their plans for a sequel unimpeded.

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