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 Iran's supreme leader, saying Friday's Israeli strikes on Iranian military sites

should, quote, neither be downplayed or exaggerated, while Israel's Netanyahu called the retaliation

for Iran's October 1st missile attack on Israel, quote, strong, precise, and achieved all of its

objectives. Joining us to assess what looks like an attempt by all parties to dampen down the

escalation is Nada Hashemi, the director of the Al-Aweed Center for Muslim Christian Understanding

and a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A non-resident fellow at

Democracy for the Arab World now. He's the author of The People Reloaded, the Green Movement

of the Struggle for Iran's Future, and sectarianization mapping the new politics of the Middle East.

Then we'll examine the failure of the press to report who Trump really is,

now that those who work closely with him in the Oval Office are sounding the alarm that he is a fascist.

Joining us to discuss the double standard in the press Van Jones points out that,

quote, Trump is allowed to be lawless while Harris is expected to be flawless.

Joining us to discuss the double standard in the press, Van Jones points out that

Trump is allowed to be lawless while Harris is expected to be flawless is James Reisen, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning

journalist and author whose investigative reporting has triggered a series of political

firestorms. Among his best-selling books are State of War, the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush

administration, and pay any price, greed, power, and endless war, the senior national security correspondent

at The Intercept, and a former investigative journalist with The New York Times.

His new book is The Last Honest Man, the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys,

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