On today’s briefing:
Trump Tries To Spin His Way Out of a Defeat and the End of U.S. Hegemony in the Persian Gulf
We begin with Trump threatening to bomb Iran tonight then reversing himself suddenly claiming “the highest level of Iranian leadership” has approved something that the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt have also approved. Joining us to analyze the real situation both present and future regardless of Trump’s desperate promises and delusional spin is Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science and the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism at the University of Chicago specializing in political violence and international security affairs. He is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, and Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. He blogs at The Escalation Trap on Substack where his latest articles are “The New Phase: Iran is No Longer Fighting for Survival. It Is Fighting for Dominance” and “Day 100: Why Iran’s Strategy Is Expanding – and the Ceasefire is Breaking Down.”
Trump Ditches Pulte to Unblock FISA So the Government Can Spy on Americans
Then, after a revolt in congress over Trump’s nomination of Pulte to be DNI with a refusal to renew Section 702 of FISA to spy on Americans, Trump ditched Pulte today and announced he is replacing him with the more acceptable Manhattan U.S. attorney Jay Clayton. Joining us is Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and a nationally recognized expert on presidential emergency powers, government surveillance, and government secrecy. Previously, she was counsel to Senator Feingold, Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is the author of The New Era of Secret Law and has an article at The Brennan Center we discuss, “Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Explained: For too long, this law has allowed the government to evade privacy protections and spy on Americans. Reform is overdue.”
Trump’s Lies About California Vote-Rigging Set the Stage To Rig the November Elections
Then finally we speak with Moira Donegan, writer in residence at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Bookforum and The Paris Review. She is the co-host of the podcast In Bed With The Right and a columnist at The Guardian where her latest article we discuss is, “Trump’s claims about California vote-rigging are a grim preview of November.”
Background Briefing offers an educational approach to providing information in an era of “fake news.”