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

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

We'll begin with last night's long and winding State of the Union address, which had

Trump throwing red meat to the Maga crowd while hurling barbs at the Democrats in the chamber,

making the decision by many members to boycott the events seem wise since it would have been harder for Trump to insult empty chairs.

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. 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. He writes at

the Rick Wilson substack.com where his latest article we will discuss is

the state of Trump's chaos.

Then we'll look into the performative nature of Whitkoff and Kushner's negotiations with

Putin, who is clearly stringing Trump along, and assess what is behind the apparent whole Putin

has over Trump, who appears anxious to abandon Ukraine and do business with the Kremlin.

Joining us is Angela Stent, the Senior Advisor and Former Director of the Center for Eurasian-Russian

and East European Affairs and a professor of government and foreign

affairs at Georgetown University. She's also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

and co-chairs the Hewitt Forum on Post-Soviet Affairs at the Brookings Institution. She served as

National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council,

and prior to that served in the Office of Policy Planning at the United States Department

...