Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at background briefing. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with Friday's Trump-Pooten summit in Alaska, which the Russians refer to as Ruskiya,

at America, at which Trump again displayed his fealty to Putin, welcoming a wanted war criminal

on a U.S. military base, which had American servicemen

rolling up a red carpet for Putin who strode up to a beaming Trump who was applauding his

arrival. Joining us to discuss the shameful amateurism of Trump's reality TV diplomacy

and its contrast to the appalling treatment Zelensky got in

the Oval Office from Trump and Vance is Angela Stent, the senior advisor and former director of

the Center for Eurasian Russian and East European Affairs and a professor of government

and foreign affairs at Georgetown University. She's also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

and served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia

at the National Intelligence Council,

and prior to that, served in the Office of Policy Planning

at the United States Department of State.

She's the author of The Limits of Partnership,

U.S.-Russia relations in the

21st century, and most recently Putin's world, Russia Against the West and with the rest.

Then we'll speak with the specialist on Russian media to get an appraisal of the summit

that the Russian public saw on Putin-controlled state media is Michael Gorham, Professor of Russian

Studies at the University of Florida. He's the author of two award-winning books on language,

culture and politics after newspeak, language, culture and politics in Russia from

...