The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 30 May 2017

Air Date: 
May 30, 2017

Photo: Moscow Financial City
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior advisor; & Cumulus Media radio.
Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes.
 
Hour One
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block A:  Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution, in re:
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block B:  Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution, in re:
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:  Stephen Moore, FreedomWorks and Heritage; in re:
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 1, Block D:  Larry Kudlow, in re:
 
Hour Two
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; in re: Allegations against Russia and Kushner are, so far, all lacking in specific data.  Puzzling,  All these are played to the hilt in the New York Times and Washington Post, although almost entirely absent from independent papers across the country.  Our friends and alies around the world read the Times and WPost and are truly alarmed.  They asked John Batchelor, “Is there substance to these allegations?” He responded, “No.” Alleged sarin gas attack by Assad in Syria – despite the fact that there’s simply no proof that the Syrian govt did  it. [In fact, it looks very much as though some of the Syrian rebels blew up a warehouse and only  then found that sarin had been stored there.]
Now, versions of Russiagate: Jared Kushner said to have tried to set up back-channel comms with Russia.   Sen McCain actually said in Canberra that Russia is the US’s number one enemy, worse than ISIS.  “It's the Russians who try to destroy the fundamentals of democracy” —what?  More than ISIS?  (1 of 4)
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; in re:  . . . Putin regularly for seventeen years has been trying to establish working relations with the US in a joint fight of terrorism,  State and DOD have fended that off.  . . . Tillerson went to Moscow and met Putin (not a planned meeting); then Sergei Lavrov visited Washington and met with Trump.  Kremlin has been concerned about disrespect from DC since G W Bush.  Putin ad to vital questions he needed answered by Trump if there were to be an alliance of state powers (Putin’s hard-liners in Kremlin demand favorable responses).  (2 of 4)
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block C:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; in re: allegations of the Kremlin blackmailing the Trump administration.  JB was in Tbilisi:  daily saw NATO forces Eurcom, Ukrainians and Georgian, in uniforms with patches, heading our for training in preparation for NATO games in Georgia,  Constitute a direct threat to the Kremlin’s sense of well being, as they’re right on Russia’s borders. NATO knew it’d trigger a reaction from Moscow. NATO slouches toward Ukrainian and Georgian NATO membership.  Sergei Lavrov visited the Oval Office; leak published that Trump had given secret info to Lavrov and said he’d fired Comey.
US and Russia are now cooperating in Syria in deconfliction and some attacks-planning. During Obama’s “reset,”  he set up an intell roundtable to share info with Russia.  This time, Lavrov needed to know how far was US prepared to go in collaboration?  Trump: We’ll go all the way, share sensitive info; also said that the US had info on laptops danger in planes.  This revelation had already been published, and in no way was excessively revelatory, Putin’s goal was also to find out if Trump could survive the calumny.   (3 of 4),
Tuesday  30 May 2017 / Hour 2, Block D:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton professor Emeritus; American Committee for East-West Accord; in r;  When Steve and I were young, having favorable discussions with antagonists was seen as brilliant; Kissinger was rewarded.  Russians are puzzled, as are Israelis, as are Azerbaijanis.  Steve Cohen: the matter at  hand is not Russia gat; it’s intellgate. Since July 2016bthy intll services have been “investigating” Trump’s Russian connections, even before the election. In a debate Mrs Clinton accuses Trump of being a Russian puppet, to which he inanely replied, “Not a puppet. Not a puppet.”  Jack Matlock said in his Facebook that he had set up a channel to Russia for Jimmy Carter; McFaul said he’d done it for Obama. Why would Kushner have tried to do it privately?  Because CIA and FBI, for sure, and perhaps others, had already started a disinformation campaign against Trump.  Not only Kushner Kissinger, also went to Moscow to set up discussions on an alliance against terrorism, in Syria, The guy who knew how to handle it all was Gen Flynn. This is all completely standard. Irrespective of what you think of Pres Trump in other areas, and I don’t care for many of his policies, what they were doing anent Russia was both correct and patriotic  (4 of 4)
 
Hour Three
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 3, Block A: Andrew McCarthy,   , in re: Jared Kushner.
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 3, Block B: Gordon Chang, daily Beast and Forbes.com, in re: North Korea.
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, aad Capitalism in Space author, and space historian; in re: space cadets (1 of 2)
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack,com, aad Capitalism in Space author, and space historian; in re: space cadets  (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 4, Block A:  John C McManus, The Dead and Those Who Are About to Die (part 1)
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 4, Block B:  John C McManus, The Dead and Those Who Are About to Die  (part 1)
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 4, Block C:  Andrew Nagorski, The Nazi Hunters  (part 1 of 2)
Tuesday  30 May 2017/ Hour 4, Block D:   Andrew Nagorski, The Nazi Hunters  (part 2 of 2)