Front Burner

Jeffrey Epstein’s vast connections with the rich and powerful, the world over, are on full display in the over 3 million files and documents released by the U.S. Justice department late last week.

There’s mounting evidence of Epstein’s relationships with people like President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and tech titan Peter Thiel, as well as behind the scenes dealmaking with global power brokers.

Today, we go over the biggest revelations with Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney. We also discuss why so few have been held accountable.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Around 73 thousand people have been detained in ICE facilities across the United States over the past year. That’s a 75 per cent increase from right before Donald Trump took office. At least 38 people have died in ICE custody since then.

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s rapidly expanding immigration crackdown, which has included the addition of over one hundred new facilities. One of those facilities, in south Florida, has been dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. In December Amnesty International USA detailed conditions there, finding they amounted to quote “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.

Amy Fischer, Director for Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA joins us to talk about what happens when people are detained by ICE and what, if anything, courts and lawmakers can do to stop it.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Pierre Poilievre easily won his leadership review in Calgary on the weekend with 87.4% of the vote. Today, senior Parliamentary bureau writer Aaron Wherry talks about the convention, whether it guarantees Poilievre’s future and what challenges still lie ahead for the Conservative leader. Plus, why a press conference at a grocery store prompted election speculation.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In just over a decade, the Conservative Party of Canada has lost four elections, picked three new leaders, and turned on two of them when they failed to become Prime Minister. As the party votes on Pierre Poilievre’s future as leader of the Conservative Party, Front Burner speaks to Conservative insiders, Abacus Data CEO David Coletto and senior parliamentary writer Aaron Wherry to consider the path the Conservatives took to this point and whether Poilievre can keep the party united behind him.

Over the last few weeks, the Trump administration has explicitly or implicitly borrowed from the Nazi tradition on social media.

Specific passages or iconography from the Third Reich have been repurposed in the context of the government’s own legislative program today. The adoption of these extreme symbols, dog whistles and phrases is part of a re-mainstreaming of fascist and Nazi ideas more broadly.

Ali Breland, a staff writer at The Atlantic, explains why he sees it as part of an attempt to remake the U.S. from a country defined by ideas like liberty and equality, to one defined by bloodline and heritage.