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 Trump and his co-president Stephen Miller declaring war on the American left,

which includes half of the country who voted for the Democratic Party,

which Miller calls, quote, a domestic terrorism organization.

Miller is vowing that he and Trump will, quote, dismantle and take on the radical

left networks in this country, and we will do it. We will use the power of law enforcement

under Donald Trump to find you, to take away your money and take away your freedom.

Joining us to discuss other examples of authoritarian takeovers of democracies like Hungary,

which is the model Republicans and Project 2025,

admires and followers, is Kim Lane Shepley,

a professor of sociology and international affairs at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

She lived in Budapest, doing research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary and teaching at both the University of Budapest and at Central European University,

where she was a founding director of the program in gender and culture.

And she studied the emergence of constitutional law in Hungary and Russia,

living in both places for extended period,

and is the author of 9-11, the rise of global anti-terrorism law.

Then we look further into how Trump and Miller are using the assassination of Charlie Kirk

as an excuse to crush the political opposition in this country

to lock in far right rule,

which Charlie Kirk espoused, and the shadow rule which J.D. Vance, Mike Johnson, and Russ Vout

embrace in terms of Christian nationalism and moral authoritarianism. Joining us is Jared Holt,

...