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

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

We'll begin with escalating pressure on Venezuela with the shadow fleet supertanker carrying oil

to Cuba and Iran seized by the US further driving up the cost of exporting Venezuelan oil

that is discounted to compete with sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil.

Joining us is David Smiley, a professor of human relations and a senior associate

at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University.

He's published five books on Venezuela and studied the country for over 33 years,

living there for most of that time.

And he is the co-author of the new book,

The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela, Revolution, Crime and Policing during Chavismo. He's the author

of the substack, Venezuela and the United States, and has an article at time, Venezuela's opposition

is using misinformation to promote regime change and an article at the

dispatch how Operation Southern Spear is a threat to U.S. democracy.

They would examine why Trump and Vance hate Europe so much while they're cozy up to the

criminal and murderous regime in Russia, trashing Europeans for being in a state of civilization or Asia, when the French,

Germans, and Scandinavians have a higher standard of living in a better quality of life than we do.

Joining us is Harold Meyerson, one of the nation's best-known progressive columnists and editor-at-large of

the American prospect. He's also been a Washington

Post columnist and executive editor of the LA Weekly and has written for a number of prominent

magazines and newspapers. We will discuss his latest article at the American prospect, Trump's

white Christian foreign policy. Then finally we'll explore the vexed relationship between

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