What’s It All About? The 2020 Presidential Election Campaign Begins

Published: Oct. 16, 2018, 10 p.m.

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Anoa Changa, director of political advocacy and a managing editor of Progressive Army, and host of the show The Way With Anoa, and Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist whose work is at rall.com.

New reports from the Federal Election Commission show that Donald Trump has already raised over $100 million for his 2020 re-election campaign, a number unmatched in decades. Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has all but declared her intention to run for president. More than two years ahead of time, the race for the presidency is already well underway.

Tuesday’s weekly series is False Profits—A Weekly Look at Wall Street and Corporate Capitalism with Daniel Sankey. Financial policy analyst Daniel Sankey joins the show.

Last month a US Border Patrol supervisor in Texas was charged with murdering four women and attempting to murder a fifth. He’ll be tried on capital murder charges. This alleged crime is extreme, but Border Patrol agents are arrested for committing crimes all the time. Just last year, 254 Border Patrol agents were arrested for drug and alcohol related crimes, domestic abuse, abuse of power, and other crimes. Brian and John speak with Isabel Garcia, co-founder of Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

The Saudi government is preparing to announce that the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was an interrogation gone wrong. But some of the most powerful people in Washington say that admission isn’t good enough, and they are calling for sanctions on Riyadh. Meanwhile, Saudi watchers say Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman may have gone too far in ordering the killing and may have put his own position in jeopardy. Whitney Webb, a journalist and a staff writer for MintPress News, joins the show.

50 years ago, on October 16, 1968, Black athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists in the air during the US national anthem while on the medal podium at the Olympics. The third athlete on the podium was Australia’s Peter Norman, who joined them in wearing a human rights badge on his uniform. The international olympic committee president threatened to ban the entire US track team, and as a result, Smith and Carlos were expelled from the games. Eugene Puryear, the host of By Any Means Necessary, which is on 105.5 FM and 1390 AM in the DC area between 2 and 4 p.m. and on iTunes, Spotify, Spreaker, and iHeartRadio, joins Brian and John.

The Russian Orthodox Church yesterday cut ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the body seen as the spiritual authority of the world’s Orthodox Christians. The row is seen as the greatest split in Christianity since the Orthodox and Catholic churches split in 1054. There is no disagreement whatsoever on dogma. Instead, the fight is over who should have authority over Ukraine’s Orthodox--Russia or Constantinople. But is modern-day geopolitics the true cause of the split? Jim Jatras, a political analyst, a former US diplomat, and a former senior foreign policy advisor to the US Senate Republican leadership, joins the show.

North and South Korea agreed on Monday to begin reconnecting rail and road links in another step toward improving bilateral relations, despite US concerns over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The two also began demining procedures in the demilitarized zone. Brian and John speak with author and professor Tim Beal, whose most recent book is “Crisis in Korea.”