Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the arrest of a Justice Department employee in Washington, D.C., charged with

assaulting a federal officer with a sandwich after calling him and other agents fascists.

With 1,650 federal officers on the streets having made 45 arrests last night while the D.C. police arrested 74,

we will examine the performative nature of the latest example of Trump's government by stunt,

which is designed to take the Epstein-Maxwell story off the headlines, and whether Democrats

should work with Republicans at all, since the GOP makes a mockery of democracy

as they undo deals on Trump's orders while enabling a fascist takeover of America.

Joining us is Harold Myerson, one of the nation's best-known progressive columnists and edited at large of the American prospect,

and we'll discuss his latest article.

Now the cops can, quote, do whatever the hell they want.

Then, as Trump continues to dominate the news cycles, we will speak with a democratic

strategist to assess what Democrats can do to get ahead of being reactive and bring

the Epstein-Maxwell story back to the

headlines. Joining us is Julia Reginsky, a political consultant and co-founder of Lift Our Voices,

a national non-profit dedicated to ending the silencing mechanisms that prevent survivors of workplace

toxicity from coming forward. She's the author of the salty politics newsletter on

Substack, where she co-hosts the Pax Americana podcast and co-hosts the Over It Show on YouTube.

Previously, she was a contributor at CNBC and the Fox News Channel, where she was a frequent

co-host of Outnumbered and the five.

In early 2017, she became one of the first women to file a sexual harassment and

...