Associate Professor of Communication, University of Washington
Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Washington; author of God Willing?: Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the War on Terror and the Echoing Press and The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America
Obama, McCain and Pastor Warren Rick Warren is author of The Purpose Driven Life , which has sold some 30 million copies worldwide. He is the evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. Tomorrow, he'll be talking for one hour each to John McCain and Barack Obama , both of whom he calls "friends." The interviews will be back to back, but this is the first time the two will have been in the same place at the same time since becoming presumptive presidential nominees. We find out what to expect from the interviews, learn how a California evangelist landed such an event and discover the potential impact—on fundamentalist Christians and the rest of the voting public.
Evangelicals and the Realities of Political Partisanship Former White House aide David Kuo says President Bush is a man of genuine faith, but he's more concerned with appearances than realities and he's promised conservative Christians much more than he's delivered. His advisors are using evangelicals for political purposes, but behind the scenes Christian leaders are tolerated rather than welcomed. Veteran Texas reporter Wayne Slater says he heard the President himself call conservative Christians "whackos." Those revelations come as Republicans are struggling to get their voters out to the polls. So, what's the real message to the religious right? Are they surprised that politics is a cynical game? Who's using whom? We hear from Kuo and Christian evangelicals.
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
Ex-FBI Director Comey tells his side of the story Today, former FBI Director James Comey came close to calling the President who fired him a liar. The White House denied the claim and called it insulting, but Republican Senators did not challenge Comey’s truthfulness. Many questions remain: did the President try to obstruct a federal investigation? Later, we’ll go behind the “velvet rope” for a look at 5-Star health care for the richest Americans.
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.