Hello and welcome to background briefing. I'm Ian Masters and today we'll begin, as we count down the last days of 2024, with a retrospective from a compilation of programs

throughout the year, starting back in January and ending this month, as we work back through

the major stories of the year as they evolved to the present.

We begin today with a broadcaster background briefing from April 9th, 2024, titled As, As Trump encourages secession and threatened civil war,

he is the gift that keeps on giving to China and Russia.

When we spoke with the original Oval Office whistleblower

from inside the first Trump presidency,

we looked back when Putin's plant in Congress, who outgoing conservative

congressman Ken Buck refers to as Moscow Marjorie, threatened Speaker Johnson to withhold aid from

Ukraine. We examined how adversaries like China and Russia have found a gift in Trump who

devise and weakens America encouraging

secession while threatening civil war.

Joining us was Miles Taylor, a national security expert who served as chief of staff to

Kirsten Nielsen, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, under the Trump

administration, when he published an anonymous essay

in the New York Times blowing the whistle on presidential misconduct. He later published a number one

bestseller, a warning, revealed himself to be the author, and launched a campaign of ex-officials

to oppose Donald Trump's re-election. He worked as an advisor in the George W. Bush administration

on Capitol Hill as a CNN contributor and is a co-founder of multiple democracy reform groups.

His latest book is Blowback, A Warning to Save America from Trump's Revenge.

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

four more ruinous years of Trump along with Vance, to those able to make end-of-the-year

...