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 Saturday's meeting in the Vatican between President Trump and President Zelensky

on the sidelines of the Pope's funeral and get an update on the White House charade of peace talks

to end Russia's war on Ukraine that are nothing more than a giveaway to Putin,

who has no incentive to end his war because Trump, Fance and Rubio have made clear

they will walk away soon and leave Ukraine to the mercy of Russia.

Joining us is Simon Schuster, a reporter for Time magazine based in New York City by way of Moscow, Kiev and Berlin.

He has previously covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for Reuters, the Associated Press,

the Moscow Times and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of The Showman, inside the invasion

that shook the world and made a leader of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Then would examine Trump's executive order to the Justice Department to investigate Act Blue,

the main funding platform of small donors for the Democratic Party,

to get private data on the 15 million Democratic donors who could soon be audited by the IRS.

Joining us is Craig Holman, who serves as public citizens Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics,

lobbying and campaign finance rules.

Previously, he was senior policy analyst at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York

University School of Law.

Then finally we'll look into whether the reactionary forces inside the Catholic Church,

who hated Pope Francis, will make a comeback with a new Pope,

in particular the secretive and well-financed cult Opus Day, which has close ties to the Maga cult,

the Supreme Court majority, J.D. Vance, and Project 2025. Joining us is Gareth Gore, a financial

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