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

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

We'll begin with Trump's first overseas trip prioritizing Saudi Arabia at the top of his

foreign policy agenda as he visited Riyadh today to sign a $142 billion weapons deal instead of a peace

deal with Putin to end the Ukraine war. he expected to sign, which is yet to

happen, while hoping to sign a peace deal with Iran that might happen.

Joining us is Sarah Lee Whitson, the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World,

now Dawn, who was formerly the Executive Director of Human Rights Watchers, Middle Eastern

North Africa

Division, where she oversaw 19 countries with staff located in 10 countries.

Then we'll look into the extent to which Trump is throwing his lot in with rich Arab potentates

who give him and his family money and a $440 million jumbo jet, while keeping America's traditional ally,

Israel, at bay, while Netanyahu pounds Gaza and is restrained from attacking Iran because Trump hopes to make a deal with the Ayatollahs.

Joining us is John Hoffman, a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, and a professor George Mason University specializing in Middle East geopolitics and political Islam. He was recently awarded the 40 Under 40 Award from the Middle East Policy Council for his work on U.S. foreign policy in the region, and his work has been featured in Middle East policy,

Open Democracy, the Cipher Brief, and Foreign Policy Magazine, where he has a recent article,

we will discuss Israel is a strategic liability for the United States.

Then finally we'll assess the chances of Trump and Speaker Johnson's big, beautiful bill making its way out of Congress as the good Christians Johnson and Russ Fout at OMB work tirelessly to hurt the poor and reward the super rich by cutting $880 billion out of Medicaid to offset making Trump's tax cuts for his billionaire buddies permanent.

Joining us for an update on what is happening on the Hill today is Alex Lawson, the Executive

of Social Security Works, where his work focuses on protecting and expanding Social Security,

Medicare and Medicaid, and lowering prescription drug prices.

We'll discuss these article at Common Dreams.

Republicans plan to rip Medicaid away from millions of seniors, all to give tax guts to billionaires.

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