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 Speaker Johnson, acting on orders from Trump,

appointing to the House Select Committee on Intelligence,

an insurrectionist Congressman Scott Perry,

and Congressman Ronnie Jackson,

whose drinking and inappropriate behavior led to a scathing report by the Pentagon's Inspector General, which resulted in Trump's former White House Navy doctor being demoted from rear admiral to captain.

Joining us to discuss how Trump is already governing in his second term by having his puppet in

charge of the House crippled the Intelligence Committee with Maga Clowns

from the Republican Pro-Puton Caucus, 46 of whom just voted for Marjorie Taylor Green's bill

to defund NATO. Joining us at Gregory Treveton, 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 we're looking into how

much the United States has become captive to its contentious

past with division, mistrust, and misinformation, 250 years in the making, resulting in Donald Trump

being simply inevitable. Joining us is Nick Bryant, the author of When America Stop Being Great,

a book that Joe Biden keeps in the Oval Office.

He was formerly one of the BBC's senior foreign correspondents with postings in Washington, D.C., New York,

South Asia and Australia.

After covering the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump,

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