Paying to play in Washington: winners, losers and suckers

On this week’s episode, we talk to Ben Freeman at the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative about how Washington think tanks — particularly foreign policy and national security institutions — are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the government, foreign countries, and the defense industry. In many cases, they aren’t disclosing it. How is this affecting policy, more specifically, is it feeding the threat of inflation keeping us on a continuous war footing? In our first segment, Dan, Barbara and Kelley talk about the pressure on President Biden to keep a military presence in or around Afghanistan. 

Ben Freeman’s latest:  

The Saudi Lobby in 2020 (May 2021)

Restoring Trust in the Think Tank Sector (with Eli Clifton) (May 2021)