Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

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

We'll begin with the pain at the pump with gas at $6 a gallon in California as oil prices continue to rise impacting India, Asia and Europe in particular, with Russia

the only winner so far.

We will discuss how Trump's war of choice is rattling allies in Europe and infuriating

allies in the Gulf who are getting pounded by Iran. Joining us is Emma Ashford, a senior

fellow at the Stimson Center, a visiting professor at Georgetown University, and a non-resident

fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. With expertise in the politics of the Middle East, Russia, Europe, her work focuses on questions of grand strategy, international security, and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

She's the author of First Among Equals, U.S. foreign policy in a multipolar world, and oil, the state and war, the foreign policies of petro states.

And she has an article at the Financial Times. We will discuss

America has become an agent of chaos in world energy markets.

Then following a classified briefing on Thursday, at which senators were told that

the Trump White House had not considered the possibility of Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz.

Senator Murphy expressed sympathy for the U.S. military because, quote,

they are being given orders by a senile old man who is losing his mind.

Joining us to assess Trump's mental acuity is Dr. Alan Francis, a professor emeritus and former chair of psychiatry and behavioral science at Duke University.

He's the author of the award-winning international bestseller, Saving Normal, and the reference work essentials of psychiatric diagnosis.

And his latest book is Twilight of American Sanity, a psychiatrist analyzes the age of Trump,

now out in an updated paperback version.

Then finally, we look into whether Trump will be able to rig the next election by pushing through

the Save America Act, which is designed to disenfranchise half of the electorate who don't

have passports and 9% who don't have the paperwork to prove they are American citizens,

...