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 an assessment of whether there would be a peace deal between Israel and Hamas

to end the war in Gaza in the next few hours and speak with Stephen Simon,

who served on the National Security Council staff as a senior director for Middle East and North African Affairs.

He also worked on the NSC staff on counterterrorism, Middle East security policy.

Currently, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

and a distinguished fellow and professor of political science at Dartmouth College.

He is the co-author among other books of The Age of Sacred Terror,

and his latest book is Grand Illusion, the Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.

Then we'll examine Trump's second coup after January the 6th, now underway, and look into

the next Christian nationalist phase of the Trump vance corrupt takeover of

America's governing institutions as they and vowed an Act Project 2025 to expand their

already substantial control of the system of justice, the Congress, our educational institutions, the military, and the

corporate media in order to control and suppress dissent.

Joining us is Catherine Stewart, a journalist and the author of The Good News Club, the Christian

rights stealth assault on America's children, the power worshippers inside the dangerous rise of religious

nationalism, upon which the feature documentary God and Country by Rob Reiner is based, and her latest

book is Money and Lies Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, and we will discuss her

article at the New Republic. Trump is steadily pushing the Republic towards

the edge of oblivion.

Then as Trump's 6 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday deadline for the end of the war in Gaza approaches,

...