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 the turnaround for the Liberal Party in Canada

after they were 24 points down facing an election

that they just won thanks to Trump and his blustering bombast

threatening to annex Canada into America's 51st state.

Joining us to discuss yesterday's election and how a divided country was

united by a disgust at Trump is Andrew Latham, a professor of international relations at McAllister

College in St. Paul, Minnesota, specializing in the politics of international conflict and

security. He was formerly the non-proliferation arms control and disarmament fellow

at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade

and a lecture at the Canadian Armed Forces School of Aerospace Studies.

Then we'll speak with presidential historian Rick Pearlstein

on the first 100 days of Trump's reign of ruin.

Rick is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Invisible Bridge, the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan,

Nixon land, the rise of a president and the fracturing of America, and before the storm, Barry Goldwater,

and the unmasking of the American Consensus.

He is currently a contributing editor and board member of In These Times Magazine,

and his latest book is Reagan Land, America's Right Turn, 1976 to 1980.

Then finally, we'll look into the intertwined history of the two Americas,

as Trump exports the worst behavior of the Colossus of the North to Latin America,

supporting state terror and lawlessness, which Washington has long supported and harnessed to pursue its own aims.

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