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 a letter signed by more than 200 former aides to McCain, Romney and the

Bushes endorsing the Harris-Walls campaign and look into how many disaffected Republicans

Kamala Harris can peel off from Trump's GOP in a center-left, centre-right alliance against chaos and fascism.

Joining us is Rick Wilson, a renowned political strategist, infamous admaker, writer, speaker,

and political commentator, a 30-year veteran of national republican politics.

He got his start in the 1988 presidential campaign of George

Herbert Walker Bush, and in December of 2019, he co-founded the Lincoln Project. And his books

include Everything Trump Touches, Dies, and Running Against the Devil, a plot to Save America

from Trump and Democrats from themselves.

Then we'll assess the likelihood of Jack Smith's appeal to the Conservative 11th Circuit,

overturning Judge Cannon's dismissal of the document's case against Trump,

which seems all but certain, as well as the possibility she might be taken off the case.

Joining us as someone who recently argued on behalf of the special counsel

before Judge Cannon Matthew Seligman,

a non-resident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.

He focuses on election law with a particular emphasis on disputed presidential elections

and prior to his academic appointments,

he practiced Supreme Court litigation at a firm in Washington, D.C.,

and clerked for the Honorable Douglas Ginsburg on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit.

He's the co-author with Lawrence Lessig of the new book,

...