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

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

We will begin with the weakening of America's defense and national security from the inside

by the Trump wrecking crew of Tulsi Gabbat, Cash Patel and Ratcliffe, who are destroying our

intelligence community, and Hague Seth and Christie Nomeam who are destroying the departments of defense and

homeland security. We will discuss how the Magamorons, in purging the ranks chasing the ghosts

of the deep state and DEI, have our military and intelligence professionals distracted and looking

over their shoulders, afraid of being fired or demoted instead of doing their jobs,

defending the nation. Joining us to discuss this self-inflicted wound that is serving

Xi Jinping and Putin is Aram Shabanian, an independent investigative reporter, and the former

open source information gathering manager at New Lines Institute. He recently taught

in nonproliferation and terrorism studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in

Monterey, where his research focused on the Cold War and contemporary histories of Eastern Europe

and the Middle East. Then we'll speak with Olga Loutman, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a European Policy Analysis,

who is also the creator and co-host of the Kremlin File podcast series,

which features expert discussions on the Kremlin's internal affairs, global operations, and tactics used

from their hybrid warfare toolkit to destabilize Western democracies.

She has a substack newsletter covering Russia, Ukraine, Eastern and Central Europe,

with a focus on Russia's intelligence operations available at Olga Latman.substack.com.

Where her latest articles we will discuss are the media continues falling for Trump's theater

while Ukraine burns

and Mental Health Awareness Month.

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