Ray McGovern, the 27-year CIA veteran who counseled seven presidents, joins host Robert Scheer in a "Theatre of the Absurd" reenactment of McGovern's historic role. Scheer plays a stern and uncompromising president receiving an uncomfortable briefing from McGovern on the most pressing issues of the day, from Ukraine to Israel to China.
Despite Scheer’s best efforts to act like a true American president, deflecting and politicizing crucial facts, McGovern lays down the bare, inconvenient truth. With regard to the Russia-Ukraine war, McGovern doesn’t hold back:
“The situation right now is very dire and what you need to know is the facts on the ground say that no amount of additional money is going to change the trajectory indicating a Russian win, probably within the next couple of months.”
The former CIA analyst presses "President Scheer" on whether he will act to end the genocide in Gaza, if he will protect the flotilla of aid heading to Gaza from Netanyahu’s bloodlust unlike Obama during his presidency and if he will step up to ease the escalating tensions following Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel over the weekend.
If there was one message McGovern aimed to drive home to “President Scheer,” it was this:
“It's not the world that you grew up with, Mr. President. We were the most powerful country in the world after World War II, after the Soviet Union imploded. That ain't the case anymore and we need to face up to that.”