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 begin with the government shut down hours away, which Trump is blaming on the Democrats

for wanting more money to spend on health care for illegal immigrants, while the crude

Bulgarian crosses the line into gutter indecency by promoting a racist and profane AI deep fake video of the House and Senate

Democratic leaders. Joining us to discuss how Trump will take advantage of the shutdown is Robert Cutner,

the co-founder and co-editor of the American prospect, and the Ida and Meyer Kirsteen chair

at Brandeis University.

He was formerly an assistant to the legendary I.F. Stone, a chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee, and for 20 years wrote a column at Business Week.

His books include Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism and Going Big FDR's Legacy,

Biden's New Deal, and the struggle to save democracy,

and we will discuss his article at the American prospect, The Art of the Budget Deal.

Then, with Trump telling hundreds of our admirals and generals today that the enemy is within

and that democratic-led U.S. cities should be military training grounds.

We will speak with Stuart Schrader, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University.

His research focuses on security, policing, and counterinsurgency, the entwement of foreign

and domestic policy, and urbanization, and he's the author

of Badgers Without Borders, How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing,

and the forthcoming book, Blue Power, How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves.

Then finally, we'll look into Trump's War on science and expertise with faith-based ignorance,

the required ingredient to keep the MAGA coalition believing the lies and absurdities issuing forth

from the administration.

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