The Breach

It’s no secret that Donald J. Trump is possessed of an outsized ego. Some psychiatrists speculate that he suffers from a psychiatric condition known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is defined by grandiosity, insecurity, callousness, and a predatory approach to human relationships. Dr. Allen Frances, who helped write the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder for psychiatry’s diagnostic bible, argues that Trump does not meet the criteria for NPD because he doesn’t suffer from his egocentric behavior. Rather, Frances argues, Trump makes other people suffer and should therefore be understood as a bad person rather than one with a mental illness. Frances and host Lindsay Beyerstein use the question of the president’s mental health as a jumping off point to consider the nature of psychiatric diagnosis and the applicability of psychiatric concepts to politics.

President Donald Trump lies, but is he just a liar, or is he something more confounding? Jeet Heer argues that Trump’s “say anything” philosophy puts him in a whole new – and potentially much scarier – category.

This month, the White House leaked that Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) was in the final stages of vetting to become the nation’s Drug Czar. Marino’s record as a prosecutor and legislator is in line with the punitive approach Donald Trump has promised to tackling illicit drugs. Sanho Tree is the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he has spent nearly two decades envisioning alternatives to the "war on drugs." He explains why a border wall won’t stop drugs from coming into the country and why our most pressing drug problem—the opioid overdose crisis—was caused by the very prohibition-oriented drug policies that Trump favors.

Last week, we learned that a FISA court gave the government permission to monitor the communications of Carter Page, a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Such warrants are only granted when there is probable cause that the target is operating as an agent of a foreign power. In Page’s case, it’s not hard to guess which foreign power. In 2013, Page admitted to the FBI that he gave documents to a Russian spy ring. On the latest episode of The Breach, Liza Goitein joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to reveal how our separate, secretive national security court system, known as FISA Court, works – and whether its benefits outweigh its risks. Liza is the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. She is a former counsel to Senator Russ Feingold and a former lawyer for the Civil Division of the Justice Department.

President Donald Trump regularly flatters Vladimir Putin and has promised warmer relations between the United States and Russia, but tensions between the two nuclear powers rose last week after Trump ordered an airstrike in Syria. How might this situation play out, and what can we learn from studying Putin's tactics at home and abroad? This week on The Breach, journalist Sarah Kendzior joins us to talk about the weaponization of information in Putin’s Russia. The full extent of Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential election is still under investigation, but Russia has a well-documented history of influencing politics abroad with propaganda, disinformation, cold hard cash, and even cyber warfare. Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee was not an isolated incident. Kendzior has a doctorate in anthropology, and her area of expertise is authoritarian regimes in post-Soviet central Asia. Her study of authoritarian politics informs her journalism as an op-ed columnist for the Globe & Mail, and beyond.

This week on The Breach, we take a closer look at those 49 words that mean so much: the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution. Law professor Zephyr Teachout joins host Lindsay Beyerstein for an in-depth discussion of one of our founding document’s most critical anti-corruption clauses. Teachout and her legal colleagues at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have launched a groundbreaking lawsuit against Trump to stop him from taking cash from foreign governments through his empire of hotels and rental properties. The Emoluments Clause has never been tested in court. A loss for Trump will make legal history and could set the stage for divestment, resignation, or even impeachment.

Welcome to the new series from Rewire Radio, The Breach! Listen to this short promo to hear more about the show from host Lindsay Beyerstein, then subscribe and share this feed with everyone you know who should be vigilant and informed on authoritarianism, corruption and overreach in our government.