Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the historic day in the House of Representatives for all the wrong reasons.

As for the first time, a speaker was dismissed and the chair vacated in a display of bitter infighting amongst Republicans

between right-ring conservatives and far-right insurrectionists, led by an ambitious brat Matt Gates, who clearly hates Kevin McCarthy.

Joining us is John Lawrence, a visiting professor at the University of California-Washington Center,

who worked in the House of Representatives for 38 years

and served as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Chief of Staff for eight years.

His latest book is Ark of Power inside Nancy Pelosi's speakership 2005 to 2010.

Then we'll look further into today's fratricide in the House as the Democrats voted with the

Freedom Caucus Rebels 216 to 210 to remove McCarthy from the speakership.

Joining us is Thomas Kahn, who worked in the Congress for 33 years,

where he served a staff director and chief counsel of the House Budget Committee

and played a critical role in a number of budget negotiations,

including Simpson-Bowles, the Biden talks, the Super Committee, the

successful balanced budget agreement of 1997, and the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

He is a fellow at the centre for the study of Congress and the presidency at American University.

Then we'll examine the UN plan to deploy a force of 1,000 police from Kenya

to free the Haitian people from gangs who have all but taken over the country in collusion

with members of the Haitian police.

Joining us is Gary Pierre Pierre, a Haitian-born Pulitzer Prize-winning multimedia and entrepreneurial journalist

who left the New York Times in 1999 to launch the

...