By Robert Scheer / Original to ScheerPost
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In this week’s conversation between the two old guys from the Bronx, Robert Scheer and Ray McGovern, the pair discuss Donald Trump’s congressional address and what the president is spelling out for the future of his term. McGovern found a great deal to be concerned about, specifically calling out Trump’s allusion to a mandate from God to lead the country.
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This transcript was produced by an automated transcription service. Please refer to the audio interview to ensure accuracy.
Robert Scheer
Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of the ScheerPost interviews with Ray McGovern, former CIA expert on Russia, 27 years with the agency as a top analyst, a leader of their Soviet-Russia desk, and a briefer of three presidents of the United States—Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Now we have President Donald Trump just gave his, I guess, State of the Union speech, although the timing was different. And Ray, I’m going to turn to you as an expert on these things. What did he really say? What is the significance of it?
Ray McGovern
Well, Bob, it was quite significant. First and foremost, I would point out that he has referred to himself as king sort of indirectly. This was kind of a reflection of his consideration of the divine right of kings. He said some things that are impossible to believe. I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, you know, Alice complains that it’s really hard to believe impossible things. And the answer she gets, please, you need practice. I believe six impossible things before breakfast in the morning. So one thing we can point out is that this divine right of kings where he says, and I want to quote him here, “I believe that my life was saved the day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. I believe that I do. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Whoa. Okay. So a lot of people believe that. And so it follows from the latest poll I saw 76% of the American people watching thought that was a great speech, okay, that they believe this trash too. Now I’m not fond of quoting mainstream media, but CBS has done a little fact checking, all right? You remember this business about social security recipients over the age of 100, you know? I’m looking forward to that. I only have 15 years to be 100, and then I’ll still get social security benefits even if I’m dead. Well, give me a break. Here’s what CBS says about that. Fact check: What Trump said was, believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million social security members from people aged 100 to 109. It lists, it goes on, it lists 3.9 million from ages, get this now, ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million—this is social security databases—3.5 million from ages 140 to 149 and end quote and money is still being paid to many of them. Period. End quote.
Come on here. Alice in Wonderland. Look, his own Social Security administrator has said, look, there’s no evidence. There is no evidence that there are large numbers of people over 100 years old receiving social security benefits illegally. And besides that, there is no one living in the United States that is over 116. So that’s what the new commissioner has said. They may be listed in these databases. They’re not receiving benefits. So let’s put that right out there.
Robert Scheer
I didn’t get your intro here. mean what you were saying. You’re saying there’s a CBS poll that says 75% of people think he has been picked by God to make a…?
Ray McGovern
This is this, well, the CBS figures have to do with this business about social security recipients over a hundred years old. The poll, I forget where I saw it, I just saw it this morning. They interviewed people who watched the speech. Now bear in mind that most people watching this speech are probably Republicans and more inclined to believe Trump. So 76 is probably skewed, but my God, it’s still.
Robert Scheer
But what is the part they were supporting?
Ray McGovern
Just a general speech.
Robert Scheer
They liked it?
Ray McGovern
Oh yeah, well let’s face it. I mean it was great TV. I mean it was orchestrated, almost two hours. Give me a break.
Robert Scheer
You’re the expert here, so let’s just cut right to the chase. What did you make of it? What positions did he outline? And I wanted to ask you about a very good historian at the University of Wisconsin. We posted his article on ScheerPost this morning, Alfred McCoy, and he picks up on Trump’s having talked about McKinley as a great unrecognized president and so forth. And McKinley is the author of probably the rawest kind of imperialism that America had. And some people think it didn’t last very long in that raw form that exposed too much. But is this speech, mean, you’re an expert now. I mean, I don’t care. The polls can make people get it wrong, but you briefed American presidents on what they should say and not say. First of all, what does the speech really say of significance about foreign policy and domestic policy? Just give us your summary of what you got from here.
Ray McGovern
On domestic policy, says, look, God has anointed me to do what needs to be done. Witnessed the fact that God saved me in Butler, Pennsylvania. Now this business about abroad. Well, McKinley, as you mentioned, Bob is the worst possible imperialist president that you could cite. mean, he’s the guy the end of the 19th century started reaching out to Cuba and Philippines and Hawaii. He got us into an imperial mode. So here’s Trump sort of, well, I can’t believe that he doesn’t know this. So he’s just saying, look, I’m going to be just like McKinley. And after I die, they’re going to name a mountain after me too. Okay.
Well, maybe they’ll put me up at Mount Rushmore. The guy is a megalomania guy. And not only that, you know, the word sociopath comes to mind. And when I say that, I’m saying that he doesn’t really care very much about people. Okay. Now witness the fact that by closing down USAID, hundreds of thousands of people are going to get TB. They’re going to get polio. They’re going to die of malnutrition. And that was documented by USAID specialists before he and Musk shut that down. So yeah, there was money devoted to overturning governments. I’m glad that’s gone, but I’m not glad that people take the light and the fact that people less privileged than we are going to die now.
Little kids are going to die from TB, TB from all kinds of preventable diseases because we are not funding these health programs, which John Kennedy, to his credit, started and now has petered out. I guess going back to God, you know, this God, well, my pastor says, you know, your God just may be my God’s worst enemy. My God is not a God of vengeance. My God is a God of justice. And in the biblical sense of justice, it’s not American kind of justice. Okay.
Robert Scheer
It’s not about your relation to God. It’s about what is in this speech that has significance for policy and where the world is headed. And you briefed presidents before. So I want to know if you had briefed Trump and he gave this speech, what broke? Well, first of all, is there any new ground? What is the foreign policy different than you expected a week ago? Let’s take it on Ukraine, let’s take it on Gaza. How do you read it?
Ray McGovern
Well, first on Gaza, you know, Bob, your concept of God is really important because if you think God approves of genocide in Gaza, you’ve got a very strange God indeed. What he said about the Middle East was in these words, quote, it’s a rough neighborhood, actually, period, end quote. I don’t know how to read that. He certainly didn’t want to touch what Netanyahu is about to do in the Middle East because he doesn’t know how to prevent it. He’s not going to be able to prevent it. We’re going to get a continuation of the genocide. Do not blanch before that word. This is not the God that anointed any of us who seek justice.
Robert Scheer
I understand, but you’re not the preacher today. Sorry to be interrupting, but some people call Biden genocide Joe. I think you did once or twice. Maybe I’m wrong. But certainly if there’s genocide going on now in relation to Gaza and the Palestinians, this did not start with Trump. In fact, there’s less killing at the moment. There’s a ceasefire. There’s some exchange of hostages. You know, I really want to…
Okay, so on Gaza, you’re saying it’s basically a continuation of what Trump is doing. You think Netanyahu will control the show and so forth. What about Ukraine? Is he now… There was the tension with Zelensky. You’re quite expert on the whole Russia situation. That’s what you covered in the CIA. Is he backing off now? Is the peace initiative still in play? What hints were there or statements in this speech that are relevant?
Ray McGovern
What he said here that I just got a letter from Volodymyr Zelensky. You know, we spent $350 billion to help him. And, you know, to put that into perspective, says Trump, there is a big ocean separating us from Ukraine. Earlier today, when Zelensky wrote the letter, he said, Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace forever. Wow, way to go Trump. Well, let’s see how that works out. In other words, Trump has scared the bejesus out of Zelensky. Whether Zelensky can be permitted by his pro-Nazi followers or accomplices to come to the table on anything close to Russian terms is something that needs to be examined. It’s not likely. What else? Here’s what Trump says about peace.
Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign that at any time, says Zelensky. Whoa, what’s that going to do? Is that going to get the US involved in exploiting minerals and rare earth materials in Ukraine? God knows. I don’t think there’s much to that at all. The Russians have already said, look, we control a lot of that stuff already. And we have our own. You want to do a deal? We’ll do a deal. I think that’s pretty much stillborn. Finally, we have had serious discussions with Russia. Then I received strong signals that Zelensky now is ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? And he turns to Pocahontas. Senator Elizabeth Warren [inaudible] said, Pocahantas, you don’t want that, do you? Do you want a continuation of the war? Camera catches her saying yes. So Trump was at his demagogic best. I found it distasteful from all kinds of perspectives.
But the takeaway here, Bob, is that he has the divine right of kings now. 76% of the American people think that was a great speech. He can do or he thinks he can do what the hell he wants. And when you looked at those applause, you know, it looked like, uh, like the old Soviet Union after a Soviet leader would make a speech, the whole text would be [inaudible]. I used to have to read it. There were no translations then. Okay. At the end of each. At the end of about every third paragraph, it would say, “burnyye aplodismenty” [inaudible]. “burnyye aplodismenty,” stormy applause. Everyone stands. Well, Congress outdid itself, at least the Republicans did yesterday. Burnyye aplodismenty. They all stood up. I didn’t count the times. It was too, too many to count. I can’t count that high. So there’s a demagogue. He says that he has the power to do this because God anointed him. That’s irrelevant, Bob. When you claim God’s on your side, well, that’s happened before, right? Gott mit uns, right? That was what the Germans had on their buckles as they went into Ukraine, into Russia, and into other places.
Robert Scheer
What’s the translation?
Ray McGovern
Gott mit uns means God is with us. He’s on our side.
Robert Scheer
That buckle is not often mentioned but I really thought a lot about this issue but this was on the buckle of all of the German troops?
Ray McGovern
It was on the SS buckles, I’m not sure whether it was on the Bundeswehr itself, but you know, it doesn’t really matter. They were told that God is with them. And that’s why it’s important. Once you invoke the Almighty, say, yeah, yeah. He not only approves our plans, but he gave all that real estate that Israel claimed to Israel. It’s written in the book, okay. Well, that’s a perverse interpretation.
Robert Scheer
I didn’t expect to actually go into this, let me point out to people listening, you are benefited from a Jesuit Catholic education, right?
Ray McGovern
Yeah, I guess when I went and studied theology in college, that was old school. During the 80s, I took a gentleman’s master’s degree at Georgetown University from Jesuits just back from San Salvador. Okay. There I learned what it’s supposed to be like if you’re supposed to be heeding the counsel of a God of justice, justice being giving priority to the poor, to the refugee, to the widow, to the orphan. And that’s not what Trump is all about. And that’s why it’s relevant to me personally, Bob. That’s the kind of God that I believe cares about people. It’s not the God that is vengeful and that was so exactly exemplified by not only what Trump said, but his whole manner and of course the [inaudible], it was quite a spectacle.
Robert Scheer
You really were scared by this speech. It showed you a sign of not only a side of Trump, but a side of the country and the acceptance of this. If I’m reading between the lines here, you are much more frightened about what’s going on than you were, say, 40 hours ago.
Ray McGovern
I am mostly because although the public response was utterly predictable, it’s still depressing in the extreme. In the old Soviet Union, the Communist Party, the Soviet Union was completely in charge. They had interlocking directorates with the government. They were completely in charge. Now the Republican Party headed by Trump is completely in charge of the executive, of the legislative, of the judicial branches of government. So even though there’s supposed to be a division of powers, Trump’s got it. And worse off, I’ll just say one more time, he thinks that God saved him in Butler, Pennsylvania to do what the hell he wants. And that means cutting aid to people who will now starve, to people who will now die of preventable diseases.
And he can do this because Elon Musk is helping him and everybody applauds. Now, as far as the drama last night, my God, it was, I mean, it was a TV spectacular. I mean, with hour and a half, hour 45 minutes, I mean, you didn’t get bored. There was this, there was this, the other, and all kinds of very cynical manipulation of people who suffered the loss of family members. I found it very distasteful, that’s me, that’s domestic politics.
Robert Scheer
But I’m relying on your expertise here and not as a theater critic, but in terms of what moves policy, how is it sold to the public? I mean, that’s the business that you really know as much as anybody I’m likely to talk to, maybe anybody in the country and that you were there briefing the president and the executive branch. You’re telling me that you are convinced that Donald Trump is driven by this religious fervor that centers on his message of God more than, well, the people you talk to, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, they all invoked a deity. They all claim, you know, God bless this America and has a special place, right?
So we were the city on the hill and so forth. Are you actually telling me that Ronald Reagan, who I thought was really more on the cynical side when it comes to religion, that he’s not a person who seems to be particularly observant or mindful of these concerns, doesn’t seem to have benefited from your kind of religious structured education. After all you spent your whole life within a Catholic education till you graduated. And I’m not putting that down, I’m just saying people who do that at least have a seriousness of purpose when they talk about religion. I’ve thought that popular view is that Trump, you know, he went his own way. Let’s put it crudely, he was out to embellish himself and so forth, and he only invokes religion when it’s convenient. You’re now telling me you think he really believes that he’s been chosen and he’s got to act accordingly.
Ray McGovern
No, he’s just exploiting it. Whether he believes that God saved him in Pennsylvania or not. He knows that he turned his head at the last minute. Now that God say, Hey, hey, Donald, turn your head! No, I don’t think so. Okay. He’s exploiting it in a way that’s so crass that it dwarfs former exploitation.
Robert Scheer
I got that but if things don’t work out, for instance, if he gets us into wars when he’s promised he wouldn’t, if inflation does not get controlled, if the good jobs don’t come back despite tariffs, if we go into a depressed economy because of those tariffs, there’s, you know the American public, yes, invokes religion in all sorts of ways to win a football game, to win a bet and everything else. But when the statistics come up, cold and hard, that jobs didn’t come here as a result of the tariffs. The tariffs hurt the economy, right? Or he’s getting us into wars, or that the situation, say, in relation to Israel and West Bank, it’s messier, and that you have to send U.S. troops or get involved, or the situation in Ukraine. That’s what I’m really asking you about. I think, yes, a speech will have an effect.
But even Hitler had to produce some decent cars like the Volkswagen. He had to actually get things to work. He had to deal with inflation. So I’m just asking you if your alarm, and it’s clear, I’ve interviewed you quite a few times now, and this is a different Ray McGovern. You really think you saw something very dangerous, frightening, and this is not an interview we would have done even 24 hours ago. Am i misreading you?
Ray McGovern
I think so, Bob. Again, what I’m saying is that he masterfully exploited his divine right of kings, so to speak, by saying once again, my life was saved for a very good reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. And I believe that I do. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you know, Bob, just as a kind of a codicil here, God bless America.
That is completely anti-biblical. You don’t use the imperative voice with God. There’s nothing in scripture that says you can order God to do this or that, to bless these people or bless those, so people don’t realize this. But what he already says is, you know, God bless this world, all the people in it, without exception, not just America, not just Israel, not just me, but everyone. And of course, that’s not the American tradition. And as long as American exceptionalism, so codified last night by Trump himself, prevails, most Americans will say, well, yeah, God is blessing us in a special way. And that game is over. We’re no longer the superpower. We’re going to be challenged by Russia, by China, by all those people in Asia and Africa. The game is up. And I don’t know how long Trump is going to get.
Well, this goes to your point, how long he’s going to get away with this. But in the interim, I’m scared to death. He’ll do crazy things and allow Netanyahu to do crazy things. I think it’s better with respect to Ukraine. He’s getting some good advice on that. I think there will be peace in Ukraine. So it’s a mixed bag, Bob. But I see a deranged person who doesn’t care about people, who’s a sociopath, witness what he’s doing with aid. I mean, that’s really important to me. All the administrators of aid pointed out all the thousands of people who will be affected by the cutoff of medical aid and all other kinds of things. So, if he’s a sociopath with respect to foreign people and people that don’t look like us, well, he’s going to do the same thing in this country and the poor will continue to increase.
And yeah, I come from a faith perspective. We Catholics brag about what we call the preferential option for the poor. And I’ll just spell it out for you in one sentence. The bishop said this 50 years ago. All right. That means that no one is entitled to amass still more wealth that they don’t need while others lack the bare necessities of life. Last time Trump was president, the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. Now it’s going to do the same thing now. For him to invoke God as approving all this stuff is in my view less for me.
Robert Scheer
You know, it’s a sobering perspective. You haven’t been this hard on Trump before. You saw some contradictions. You thought that he was going to be less willing to get us into wars. You promised that. You felt that the Democrats had a lot of response, but for instance, income gap really started widening most dramatically under Bill Clinton and his deregulation of Wall Street. And I’m saying this out of respect, because I know your opinions are considered. I know you don’t just say things, even though I’m not the president and you’re not briefing me. I know you’re a serious person. And so my takeaway from this conversation, you know, is if McGovern is worried, then I should be worried. And you saw something in that speech or heard something in that speech. I don’t want to misread this, but it seems to me you felt this speech revealed something even more frightening about what’s going on, then you felt.
Ray McGovern
Bob, just to kind of pick up on that, I watched many speeches of Stalin, Khrushchev, Grishnev. It was sort of like a feedback, a bad memory last night. It was a person who thought he had total power because in his case, the Republican Party, unlike the Communist Party, the Soviet Union, or like it, the Republican Party had a corner on the power and it does. And the performance there and the reaction showed me that a dangerous Trump with the divine right of kings now will feel empowered to do what the hell he wants, not only abroad, but inside this country, rounding up refugees, rounding up widows and orphans. And that just cuts to the quick. That’s not justice. That’s not my God. And I’ll just repeat my pastor saying, your God might be the worst enemy of my God. Trump’s God is the worst enemy of my God. My god.
Robert Scheer
Well, I’m not gonna, you know, let’s see how it moves, but it’s one of the more sobering, not the most sobering conversation I’ve had in some time. So I’m gonna wrap it up there and let people respond and see where it goes. See you next week, Ray, with another one of these two old timers from the Bronx. Sure is not like when Roosevelt was president and I was born and you were around then too, so a little bit. All right, see you later.
Ray McGovern
Bob, I don’t know. I don’t know how your family reacted when FQR died. But my dad, the only time I saw him really cry without being consoled. And he told me very early what it meant. In the Bronx, we used to say, as you may know, but in the Catholic circles, when you are baptized, membership in the Democratic Party and the local union was conferred at baptism, okay? Well, that was because FDR saved all of our derrières, saved our country for God’s sake. And my dad said, you know, Democrats care about little people, about young people, about people who are on the outskirts now. That’s no longer the case. That’s a big great sorrow for me. And they’re paying the price now.
Robert Scheer
Unfortunately, the unraveling of the Democratic Party’s commitment to working people, to ordinary people and so forth again, came, yeah, Ronald Reagan certainly went after him, even though his own father had worked in the New Deal and he had said the New Deal saved him. When I interviewed Ronald Reagan, he told me at that moment, he still thought he had great admiration for FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But the fact is he wanted to unravel the New Deal. And then the guy who really got it done was Bill Clinton. He got it done, he deregulated Wall Street, he reversed the main, you know, Glass-Steagall, the main restraint on Wall Street greed it got unleashed and it was an alliance between the Democrats and Republicans that created this big mess and where the billionaires control everything and ordinary people feel so frantic they even find comfort in somebody like Trump hoping that he’s gonna make it better. So yeah, this is the most depressing of our conversations. I’m gonna stop now or I’m not gonna be able to for the rest of the day, but we’ll hear what other people think about this.
Ray McGovern
Let me just add a footnote, Bob, if I may. You talk about what FDR did in our country. That’s wonderful. That was golden. Now, Clinton, in contrast, not only screwed up our country economically, but screwed up our country vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, later Russia. Now, how did he do that? He sent his Wall Street guys and his Harvard economist to exploit the Russian economy between 1990 and when Putin came in 2000. That’s what the deal was. They exploited it. They worked with oligarchs east and west to draw all the riches they could out of Soviet and Russian resources. And that’s what the Russians remember.
One little factoid here that I would add. Between 1991 and 1995, according to the World Bank, mind you, the average age at which a Russian male died went from 63 to 57. Five, four years actually, ‘91 to ‘95. My God, they were dying in the street. That’s why Putin came in. That’s why he worked.
Robert Scheer
I’m missing the statistic. They said the average age…
Ray McGovern
Yeah, a Russian male before 1991 died at age 73. I’m sorry, got that wrong before. 73. And after Yeltsin’s first term, the average age at which a Russian male died was 67. Okay. Now that speaks volumes of what happened. And that was when all of a sudden Yeltsin had to run for reelection. And who won reelection for Yeltsin? It’s very clear. US money, the Harvard boys and the US Treasury people. So, you know, if you’re looking at Putin, he watched all this and he saw what happened. Instead, in spite of that, he reached out to the United States, wanted to join NATO, suggested that to Bill Clinton and Clinton says, join NATO? You Russians? Yeah, join NATO. He said, well, get back there on that. It goes back that evening and says, well, my team. My team says that’s a no-go.
Robert Scheer
So we got that, so you would think the one area that the government would still think Trump might be bringing about some progress based on what you’ve said over the years was in this negotiation with Putin, which after all is the other nation that has all those nuclear bombs that can destroy all life on this planet. Others are catching up, China’s coming along, but still this relationship with Russia, we haven’t talked about that. But did you find any reassurance in this speech that he’s actually going to try to be successful now and maybe getting peace in relation to Ukraine and Russia?
Ray McGovern
Well, I didn’t need much reassurance in the speech. His actions speak louder than his words. There was one sentencing. yeah, we’re also negotiating with Russia with making that better. And they are. And Bob, this is big. Okay, this is really big. But I guess personally, when I see our country enabling, arming genocide and a president that thinks that God has kind of
authorized him to do that. That puts in bas-relief what people who care about justice, people who care about sociopaths being president should be concerned about. So that was my lesson from the speech. He’s doing very good things with respect to Russia. I don’t know how much that will carry over with the people he has now advising him, how much it will carry over to Israel and Gaza. That’s a completely different kettle of fish. much more pessimistic on that. And that’s where we’re doing genocide. I’ll say it one more time. Genocide. I never thought I would be an American citizen living in a time when my country is participating and enabling an army.
Robert Scheer
The genocide you’re referring to is in the Middle East or it’s also with Ukraine? Okay, so yeah, but you know, I’m through playing devil’s advocate. At least there is a ceasefire source. At least there has been an exchange of hostages.
Ray McGovern
This week. Tune in next week.
Robert Scheer
Yeah, well, that’s why we talked to you Ray. You got this expertise. Anybody who spent time briefing Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and now is worried. You’re more worried than you were by those three guys, right?
Ray McGovern
Yeah. And just as a sort of a side, Bob, some people realized that I wasn’t picked to brief Republican presidents. It was just a matter of coincidence that I was at that level of my career where when Nixon came in, I was on the briefing staff, Ford, and then I was senior enough to conduct one-on-one briefings of Ronald Reagan’s chief, national security officials, including the vice president, secretary of state and so forth. Truth be told, Ronnie preferred to sleep in, okay, and he would listen to what these people that I had briefed wanted to say to him at 11:30 when he had had his coffee.
Robert Scheer
I got that. I’m not claiming that you were in his ear all the time, but I mean, you’re familiar with three presidents. were in the CIA as the head of the Russian desk, Soviet Union desk for a while. And for 27 years, you tried to inform American foreign policy and you had certainly as much familiarity with what the executive branch was considering, was up to, or was doing. You were there. I’m not claiming that you were running the country far from it. But the fact is, for you to be as worried as you are now, I’m just taking this out, away from this interview or discussion, is really quite troubling to me. Because, you know, after all, you are trying to be objective about Trump. You are presenting, you know, the one hand he’s not this and that. Now you seem to have gone over to this view that we have a nightmarish tyranny in the offering.
Ray McGovern
Well, for the simple people abroad and in our country, it will be a nightmare, particularly in view of the fact that Trump thinks he’s ordained by God to do things that an Old Testament God may have ordained, but not the God of love, the God of compassion, the God that cares about the little people. And that’s the one that I think prevails. I had a Jesuit tell me one time, look. Here’s my theology, one sentence. It all depends on who you think God is and how God feels when little people are pushed around. Whoa! That spoke to me. That’s my theology as well. Little people being pushed around throughout the world, even in this country. It’s a bad scene when everybody applauds that.
Robert Scheer
All right, we’ll end on that note and I want to thank our executive producer Joshua Scheer, Diego Ramos who writes the intro, Max Jones who does the video, the JKW Foundation for supplying some support funding and in memory of Jean Stein, a very independent and important writer.
And Integrity Media with Len Goodman, an attorney in Chicago, who gives us, also, some additional support and involved in supporting more independent and free journalism. See you next week with another edition of my conversation with Ray McGovern. See you, Ray. Take care.
Featured Photo: President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. (By Gage Skidmore) | Creative Commons
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/54362405139/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/54362405139/)
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Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer, publisher of ScheerPost and award-winning journalist and author of a dozen books, has a reputation for strong social and political writing over his nearly 60 years as a journalist. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications nationwide—he was Vietnam correspondent and editor of Ramparts magazine, national correspondent and columnist for the Los Angeles Times—and his in-depth interviews with Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and others made headlines. He co-hosted KCRW’s political program Left, Right and Center and now hosts Scheer Intelligence, an independent ScheerPost podcast with people who discuss the day’s most important issues.
Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27 years as a C.I.A. analyst included leading the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and conducting the morning briefings of the President’s Daily Brief. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
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