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 what is now being called Signalgate, which exposed the incompetence,

amateurism, and arrogance of Trump's top aides, only to be exceeded by their unseemly avoidance

of responsibility and admission of the obvious that they screwed up.

Then, in testimony before the intelligence committees, they made a mockery of the intelligence community's motto of speaking truth to power, which in the case of Gabbard and Ratcliffe

was a craven example of speaking lies on behalf of the powerful.

Joining us is Harold Myerson, one of the nation's best-known progressive columnist and

editor-at-large of the American Prospect, and we will discuss his latest article at the

American Prospect if Trump World's security norms had been in place before.

Then, as opposition to the radical agenda of the Musk,

broligarchy and magafascism busily plundering our government grows,

we will examine the emerging resistance since, as long as the United States

have competitive elections, there is no way the Republicans can retain the House

or Senate in 2026 or the White House in 28.

As Trump, Musk, Vance and Vort move fast and furiously to consolidate a new authoritarian

Christian nationalist constitutional order, the battle ahead is an uphill one.

But the fact remains that neither the center nor the far right can offer a pathway out of America's institutional collapse and democratic decay.

A movement on the left has been built before in the US and elsewhere, and Aziz Rana believes there is no alternative to building it again.

He is the University Professor of Law and Government at Boston College, where his

research and teaching centers on American constitutional law and political development, as well as

how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since

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