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 President Trump's threats against Iran that he will bomb them

unless they come to the negotiating table and whether reports that there were nuclear weapons

aboard the seven B2 bombers now in Diego Garcia are meant to put additional pressure on the

Iatollahs or that Trump is seriously

considering using low-yield nuclear bombs to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities.

Joining us is Paul Pillar, who served for 30 years as an analyst at the CIA in which his last

position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia.

Previously, he served as the chief of the analytics units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia.

And he has headed the assessments and information group of the Director of Central Intelligence's Counterterrorism Center,

and is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University

and an associate fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy and a non-resident fellow

at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His latest book is Beyond the Water's Edge,

how partisanship corrupts U.S. foreign policy.

Then we're looking to how much Trump and Stephen Miller are borrowing from the disappearance

tactics of the Argentine junta, Pinochet, and the Nazis, as students, researchers,

and green card holders are rounded up and sent to remote detention facilities.

Joining us is Henry Giroux, a renowned educator, author and cultural critic who holds the chair

for scholarship in the public interest in English and cultural studies at McMaster University in Canada.

His recent books include disposable futures, the seduction of violence in the

age of spectacle. America at war with itself, insurrections, and fascism on trial, education

...