Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today at which Republican senators took a back seat,

while Democrats questioned the incompetent and unqualified heads of the CIA, FBI,

and Office of the Director of National Intelligence over the signal group chat involving 18 of the top Trump officials discussing classified information about an impending strike on the hooties in Yemen, which was

inadvertently shared with the editor of the Atlantic. We'll discuss how the chat reveals the operational

role of Vice President Vance running the presidency, along with Stephen

Miller, with all trying to second-guess an absentee president as they blustered with childish

macho bravado over what they were about to unleash on the hooties.

Joining us is Jacob Harbrun, the editor of the national interest, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and a columnist for The Spectator.

His books include they knew they were right, The Rise of the Neocons, and America Last, the right century-long romance with foreign dictators.

We will discuss his article at The Spectator. The government by group chat scandal should cost Mike Walt's his job.

Then we'll look into the sad state of American intelligence led by a clown show of deliberately chosen delusional ideologues,

following their dear leaders dictate to destroy the deep state, either at Putin's behest or to

satisfy Trump's grievance or both. Joining us, Gregory Trevitin, a senior advisor with the Transnational

Threats project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor for 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,

for 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 speak with Samuel Moyne, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisputants

at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University.

...