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Future of the ACA, Trump's Business Interests, The NSA reacts to Russia

The Takeaway
  • Hate crimes against Muslims spiked last year to their highest level in more than a decade, while recent cabinet appointment Steve Bannon has said on tape that he doesn't want his kids to going to school with Jews. Rabbi David Fox Sandmel, the Anti-Defamation League’s director of interreligious engagement and Mehnaz Afridi, Director of the Religious Studies, Holocaust, Genocide & Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, discuss the effect of Trump's rhetoric on Jews and Muslims.

  • President-elect Trump, who vowed to repeal Obamacare, has since said he would leave some elements intact. More than 100,000 people signed up for Obamacare the day after the election and nrollment will remain open until the end of January. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, says that the loss of the Affordable Care Act would not only have a significant impact on the healthcare of Americans who rely on it but on the institution that helps enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans.  

  • While President-Elect Donald Trump was rage-tweeting S.N.L and the cast of the musical, Hamilton—effectively overshadowing the news that Trump had agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits against his allegedly fraudulent Trump University—he was also busy meeting with Indian business partners, another example in a recent series of events suggesting that the incoming president has yet to separate his business interests from governing.

  • When Donald Trump was elected president, social media sites associated with ISIS and al-Qaeda celebrated Trump's victory. "Rejoice with support from Allah, and find glad tidings in the imminent demise of America at the hands of Trump,” wrote one ISIS related outlet. Rukmini Callimachi, a correspondent for The New York Times who reports on al-Qaeda and ISIS, explains the terror groups' reaction to the election.

  • General Michael Hayden, former Director of the NSA between 1999 and 2005, and the CIA between 2006-2009, discusses how the intelligence community is responding to Russian meddling and preparing for a Trump presidency. Last week, Hayden said that the intelligence community needs to "man up" when dealing with Trump. 

  • A new film from executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio called "The Ivory Game" depicts the underbelly of ivory trafficking. The film goes undercover in Africa and China to find intelligence operatives, undercover activists, and front line rangers. Directors Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani discuss the purpose of making their film: to serve as a riveting wake up call for the deep corruption at the center of the global ivory trafficking dilemma.

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