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 the fateful election three weeks away and get an update on the polls and predictions,

which now have Kamala Harris slightly ahead in most swing states, but within the 1% margin of error, meaning that spoilers like Jill Stein and Cornell West could swing the election to Trump.

Joining us is Bill Cher, the politics editor of the Washington Monthly.

He is the host of the history podcast When America Worked,

and co-host of the bipartisan online show and podcast, the DMZ.

We'll discuss his latest article at the Washington Monthly. The Harris and

Trump media strategies tell us how they each view America. One candidate uses media to fuel

political polarization. The other is trying to cure us of it. Then with Trump's closing arguments

in the campaign and anti-trans media blitz, along with increasingly vile anti-immigrant rhetoric at his rallies, we'll examine the extent to which America itself is on trial and could soon descend into darkness, as Germany did in the 1930s.

Joining us is Sidney Blumenthal, the former assistant senior advisor to President Bill Clinton

and senior advisor to Hillary Clinton.

He has been a national staff reporter for the Washington Post, Washington editor and

staff writer for the New Yorker, and his books include the bestsellers, the Clinton

wars, the rise of the counter-establishment, and the

permanent campaign. His latest book is All the Powers on Earth, The Political Life of Abraham

Lincoln, 1856 to 1860, and we will discuss his latest articles at The Guardian. Donald Trump's

Hitlerian logic is no mistake, and Trump and his allies are whipping up a whirlwind of lies about the

hurricane. Then finally we'll speak with David Nol, the Assistant Dean for Faculty Research and Development,

and a professor of law at Rutgers Law School, an academic fellow of the National Institute for

Civil Justice. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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