M. The S. W. Media.

We've made major news this weekend as we learn from the New York Times that Trump was briefed on intelligence that Russia paid the Taliban bounties on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Records setting coronavirus cases in multiple states are now surpassing New York's previous numbers and causing states to shut back down.

The coronavirus task force held its first briefing in two months and it was full of lies.

Jack Abramoff is charged with crimes under the law named after him, the House passed DC Statehood.

Scotus, blocks vote by mail in Texas. Facebook will start flagging hate posts.

An update on Roger Stone going to prison. Another Trump campaign associate is sentenced to prison.

The Department of Justice files a brief to gut the Affordable Care Act. Mississippi votes in a veto-proof majority to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag.

Workers removed social distancing stickers from Trump's Tulsa rally. A man fires into a crowd protesting the shooting of Brianna Taylor.

And Trump retweets a video of a Florida man chanting white power. I'm your host A.G.

Hey everybody, it's A.G. We have major major news for you today from the weekend, including a pair of stories from the New York Times alleging intelligence officials briefed the White House and Trump and Pence and the NSC that the Kremlin, specifically the GRU, paid bounties to Taliban terrorists to murder US and UK military personnel in Afghanistan.

And some of those bounties were collected and there were casualties according to a European intelligence official that spoke to CNN.

Shortly in the A block, I will be speaking with Obama's ambassador to Russia and the author of from Cold War to Hot Peace, Mike McFall.

We're going to discuss this reporting, including what else was going on during this time in March and leading up to it because I think contextual history is vital here.

And we're also going to talk about the response from the White House and the press secretary and Trump himself. And then after that, I'll be joined by Jordan Coburn from News from Under the Radar and of course we'll wrap things up with your good news stories from the weekend.

And thanks to the hundreds that joined us on Friday for our live stream on Crowdcast, we look forward to seeing you again this Friday at 4pm Pacific time for patrons and 5pm for the public.

If you're interested in becoming a patron, head to patreon.com slash the daily beans.

Later this week, you'll be able to sponsor a patron that otherwise might not be able to afford to pledge during this crisis.

So thanks to all of our patrons that have already done so. As you may have noticed in the intro, we have a lot of news to get to. So let's hit the hot notes.

Hot notes.

Alright, so joining me today to discuss the major breaking news story from the weekend is author of from Cold War to Hot Piece, an American ambassador in Putin's Russia.

The former ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration, Mike McFaul. Michael, thanks for taking time to speak with me today.

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