Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at background briefing.

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

We'll begin with Trump's successful scuttling of the bipartisan immigration bill

with help from his toady speaker, Mike Johnson, who was publicly humiliated in the House yesterday

with his failure to pass the vote on impeaching the head of the Department of Homeland Security,

then failing to pass a vote for aid to Israel,

which is almost sacrilegious for the self-righteous Christian,

given the Christian rights devotion to Israel.

Joining us is Justin Higgins,

who has worked as an immigration policy advisor to a Tea Party,

now House Freedom Caucus member of Congress,

and worked on Trump's 2016 campaign at the RNC, all before becoming a Democrat and an appointed

official for the Democratic governor of Puerto Rico. He now hosts the Politics Plus Media 101 podcast,

and we'll discuss how the national interest is no longer a consideration

in Trump's GOP. Then with Trump killing aid to Ukraine, thanks to the MAGA Republicans in the

House and Senate, we will speak with Michael Weiss, editor at the insider, a Russian-focused independent

media outlet who has reported on international

affairs for over 10 years with a focus on the Middle Eastern Russia. He has interviewed ISIS operatives

and Russian spies, published and curated a series of still classified KGB training manuals, reported

from rebel-held Syria and war-torn Ukraine, broken major stories about financial corruption,

and exposed the Russian intelligence services ongoing subversion efforts in the United States and Europe.

He's the co-host of the Foreign Office podcast at New Lines Magazine,

...