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 Trump, the reality TV president, teasing us all whether we'll go to war against Iran with the cliffhanger,

quote, I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do.

Joining us is Nicholas Harris, Senior Director for Strategy and Innovation at the New Lines Institute

and the former Middle East Security Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of War,

where he was Director of Governmental Relations responsible for Russia and Eurasia.

From 2016 to 2017, Nicholas served as the 10th First Lieutenant Andrew J. Basevich Jr. USA Fellow at the Center for New American Security, and he has conducted an extensive study on Iran's proxies in the Middle East for the National Defense University.

Then we'll examine the split in Maga World between the American Firsters and the Hawks and Christian Zionist,

which was illustrated by the clash between the insidious Tucker Carlson and the odious Ted Cruz.

Joining us is Ben Burgess, the host of the Give Them an Argument podcast and YouTube channel,

a philosophy instructor at Morehouse College and a columnist for Jacobin.

His books include Give Them an Argument, Logic for the Left, Cancelling Comedians

While the World Burns, A Critique of the Contemporary Left, and Christopher Hitchens,

What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters.

We'll discuss his article at MSNBC. Trump's America

first supporters feel duped by his hawkishness on Iran. Then finally we'll assess whether the white

supremacists and neo-Nazis who have their champion in Trump and who can now apply for a job

at ISIL, Homeland Security to join the Trump

militia can do so because America is Charlottesville now. Joining us to discuss the legacy of the

August 2017 emergence of American Nazis who Trump referred to as fine people, is Deborah Baker,

the author of A Blue Hand and The Last

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