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'll begin with Israel's National Security Advisor announcing that the war in Gaza will go on for at least another seven months,

which could prove fatal to Biden's re-election chances as Netanyahu has him twisting in the wind,

as the tail wags the dog, and Biden's red lines become meaningless.

Joining us is Ryan Cooper, the managing editor at the American Prospect. He's the co-host of the

Left Anchor podcast as well as the author of How Are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers

to the Dumbest questions in politics.

We'll discuss his latest articles at the American prospect,

why you should care about the Trump trial, and Joe Biden's dithering in Gaza gets absurd.

The Netanyahu regime is making a mockery of American policy.

We'll also get an update on the New York trial,

with the jury deliberating Trump's fate for a second day having reached a verdict,

which presumably will be guilty, given that apparently there's no hung jury involved.

And we'll discuss what appears to be a learned helplessness on the part of the Democratic Party and its supporters who have internalized the idea that Trump

is immune from negative coverage. What if Obama or Biden were to be found to have paid off a

porn star they had sex with to help get elected? The Republicans would go to DefCon 5 and the

press would pile on with a cacophony of indignation

and calls for impeachment, making the Clinton-Lewinsky affair seem G-rated.

Then, with Putin threatening nuclear strikes on small Western countries with dense populations,

we'll assess how the war in Ukraine has gone from a proxy war to a NATO conflict

with Russia not so much the winner, but a spoiler. Joining us is Robert Young Peltin, an author,

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