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 will begin with a milestone in American politics, with a plutocrat not just influencing

and shaping the government from behind the scenes to today's moment when the richest man in the

world is giving orders to the House Republicans to shut down the government and not pass any

bills until January the 20th.

Joining us to discuss the anti-democratic politics of having it all,

as the broligarchs like Musk and Bezos not only can overrule the laws of the land,

but plan to escape the planet entirely after leaving the democracy that brought them prosperity in ruins.

Joining us is Brooke Harrington, a professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College,

a certified wealth manager, and an advisor to the OECD and European Parliament, among other

organizations. She's the author of several books, including the best-selling

Capital Without Borders, and her latest book is Offshore, Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism.

Then we'll examine Victor Orban's Hungary as the model Trump and the MAGA Republicans are following

as they implement Project 2025,

and Trump moves to control the media following Orban's first move to do so when he took

over Hungary's democracy and turned it into a kleptocracy and dictatorship.

Joining us is Kim Lane Shepley, a professor of sociology and international affairs at the

University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She lived in Budapest doing research

at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central

European University, where she was a founding director of the program in gender and culture.

Sheppley also studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia,

living in both places for extended periods, and is the author of 9-11, The Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law.

Before we begin, in the last weeks of this year, as we face

...