Hello and welcome to background briefing available 24 7 at background briefing.

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

We'll begin with Wednesday's warning from the Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee

of, quote, a serious national security threat to the United States, which apparently has something

to do with the possible Russian program to deploy nuclear weapons in space, which would violate

the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning such weapons in space.

Joining us to discuss what might be behind this cryptic warning that House Speaker Johnson

was quick to downplay is Tom Kalina, who until recently was the Director of Policy at the Plow Shares Fund,

who previously served as a Research Director of the Arms Control Association,

was the executive director and co-founder of the Institute for Science and International Security,

and the director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

He's the co-host of the Press The Button podcast

and the co-author with William Perry of The Button, the new nuclear arms race and presidential

power from Truman to Trump. Then we'll examine the foreign money pouring in to influence our

elections and the role of big consulting firms like McKinsey and Company

confronting four unsavory dictators seeking to buy American politicians and sanitize their

reputations. Joining us is Casey Michelle, the director of the Combating Cleptocracy Program

at the Human Rights Foundation, as well as a writer, analyst and investigative journalist working

on topics ranging from kleptocracy, illicit finance, as well as a writer, analyst, and investigative journalist working on topics

ranging from kleptocracy, illicit finance, dark money, foreign lobbying, and foreign influence

to the legacies of Russian and Soviet colonialism. He is the author of American kleptocracy,

how the U.S. created the world's greatest money laundering scheme in history. And his forthcoming book is

...