Trump’s War on Truth and Science (with James Morone)

About this episode

The episode discusses Trump's use of political violence and the implications for media and law enforcement, featuring an interview with James A. Morone about health care politics.

Trump briefly talked about “cooling things down.” Then came the escalation. This week on The Oath and The Office, Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang look at how President Trump is using political violence not as a reason for restraint, but as a weapon against his opponents. Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah are targeted for jokes. A 60 Minutes interview becomes another venue for attacking the press. And the administration’s suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center raises a larger question: is law enforcement being turned into a tool of political retaliation? We also turn to the Supreme Court’s major Fourth Amendment case over geofence warrants and cell location data. The old law-school hypotheticals about government surveillance no longer feel hypothetical. With companies like Palantir helping build the modern surveillance state, the threat of databases tracking protesters, dissidents, and political opponents is suddenly very real. Then Corey is joined by James A. Morone, Professor Emeritus at Brown University and one of the country’s leading political scientists, to discuss his new book with David Blumenthal, "Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science"…

People in this episode

Hosts: Corey Brettschneider, John Fugelsang

Guest: James A. Morone

Topics covered

• political violence
• media attacks
• law enforcement
• government surveillance
• health care politics
• COVID-19
• Trump administration

Keywords

• Trump
• political violence
• media
• health care
• Obamacare
• COVID-19
• surveillance
• James A. Morone
• Whiplash
• Southern Poverty Law Center

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Southern Poverty Law Center, Palantir, Yale University Press

Books & works: Whiplash: From the Battle for Obamacare to the War on Science

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