Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with a pointless and lackluster speech by President Trump last night to the nation in which he declared victory in a war he will end in three weeks without actually securing

anything that could be called to victory. Joining us to discuss the urgent need to save the country from

a disastrous leader who is propped up by a gutless Congress and a treasonous right-wing press

is Corey Brett Schneider, a professor of political science, a Brown University, where he teaches

constitutional law and politics. He is the co-host of the podcast, The Oath and the Office,

and the author of The Oath and the Office,

a guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents and Decisions and Decents of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

a selection. His latest book is The Presidents and the People,

Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and and the Citizens who Fought to Defend It.

Then we'll examine the destruction of a country underway with more promised last night by Trump,

who announced that Iran would be bombed, quote, back to the Stone Age where they belong.

Joining us to discuss how the majority of Iranians who want to be freed from their cruel,

corrupt and fanatical government must feel about Trump's threat to obliterate them,

their country, and their culture is Kian Taj Baksh, an Iranian American scholar, social scientist and urban planner,

who is taught at both American and Iranian universities and is currently a professor of international relations at New York University

and a presidential fellow and professor of Columbia University School of International Public Affairs.

In his advocacy for democracy and human rights, Taj Bucks represented the Open Society Foundation in Iran during the 2000s

and his commitment to pro-democracy efforts led to his arrest during Iran's Green Movement protest of 2009.

He was one of five Iranian Americans held in Iran, whose release was negotiated by the Obama

administration as part of the Iran nuclear deal, and he was finally permitted to leave in 2016.

He's the author of Creating Local Democracy in Iran,

...