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 begin on this day before the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, with Trump

seizing on the terrorist attack in New Orleans to justify the mass roundup of immigrants,

who he is blaming, even though the perpetrator of the New Orleans massacre was a US Army vet

and the other American who blew up the Tesla cyber truck in front of the Trump Hotel

was an active-duty U.S. Army Green Beret.

Joining us to analyze Trump's ominous response to the recent attacks is Karen Greenberg,

director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School,

an International Studies Fellow at the New America Foundation, a permanent member of the Council

on Foreign Relations, as well as the editor-in-chief of the Aeon Cyber Brief.

She's the author of The Least Worst Place, Guantanamo's First 100 Days days and rogue justice, the making of the security

state, subtle tools, the dismantling of American democracy from the war on terror to Donald Trump,

and our nation at risk election integrity as a national security issue. We will discuss her

article at Tom Dispatch. Trump brought the war on terror home, and he'll do it again.

Then we'll speak with a specialist on the rise of fascist regimes, just ahead of an American despot taking power,

with so much more control Hitler had in 1933 since the Supreme Court has given him blanket immunity,

and he not only controls the judiciary,

but the House and Senate too.

Joining us is Ruth Ben Gert, an historian who writes about authoritarianism, democracy protection, and propaganda.

She is the Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, a recipient of Guggenheim,

Fulbright, and other fellowships, and an advisor to protect democracy.

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