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 Republican cynicism as they try to push through Trump's mega bill

without even their own members having time to read it so that they can give tax breaks to

billionaires immediately, but delay cuts to Medicare and food stamps until after the midterm

elections in the hope that their

own voters won't wake up and feel the pain until after the 2026 election.

Joining us is Edward McCaffrey, the Robert C. Packard, trustee chair in law and a professor

of law, economics, and political science at the University of Southern California.

He is the author of Fair Not Flat, How to Make the Tax System Better and Simpler, and the founder of the People's Tax Page.

Then, with yesterday's release of a report investigating Russia's involvement in the 2016

election by CIA Director Ratcliffe in which he spun the

findings to please his boss who has been trying to obfuscate the damning facts in what

Trump calls Russiagate only to have the report support, quote, the quality and credibility

of the CIA's findings that Putin helped Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton

in the 2016 elections. Joining us is Gregory Trevedin, who was the National Intelligence Officer,

who oversaw the creation of the report in 2016-2017. He is now a senior advisor with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic

and International Studies and a professor of the practice of international relations at the

University of Southern California. He has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee

on Intelligence, handling Europe and the National Security Council and was chairman of the National

Intelligence Council from 2014 to 2017. His books include dividing divided states beyond the

great divide, relevance and uncertainty in national intelligence and science for policy.

Then finally we'll look into the appalling behavior of U.S. contractors with the

...