
Background Briefing with Ian Masters
Background Briefing goes far beyond the headlines and deep under the radar to bring forward truths unheard elsewhere in American media. Background Briefing features international and national news, expert guests, policymakers, and critics offering analysis and insight on national security, foreign and domestic policy, political, cultural, and social issues.
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Latest episodes

Jan 12, 2025 • 1h 4min
January 12, 2025 - LeRoy Westerling | David Smilde | James Zirin
Instead of Helping Angelenos Who Lost Their Homes, Trump Offers Insults | The Third Inauguration of Venezuela's Maduro Who Lost the Last Election in a Landslide | The Scofflaw-in-Chief is Now the Felon-in-Chief
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Jan 9, 2025 • 1h 5min
January 9, 2025 - James Fallows | Glen MacDonald | Mark Whailing
Today's Moving Memorial of President Jimmy Carter at His State Funeral | How Climate Change Supercharged the Wildfires That Swept Through LA | A Former LAFD Battalion Chief on What it is Like to Confront a Wall of Flame Driven by 80 MPH Winds
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Jan 8, 2025 • 1h 6min
January 8, 2025 - Harry Litman | Dr. Jon Kelley | Jamie Court
The Ghost of Roy Cohn Will Rule Over the Next 4 Years of MAGA Jurisprudence | Environmental and Ecological Factors Behind the Wildfires Raging in LA | Will Homeowners Get Their Insurance Payouts and Will Insurance Still Be Available in Fire-Prone Areas?
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Jan 7, 2025 • 1h 3min
January 7, 2025 - Scott Horton | Stephen Kinzer | Alexander Cooley
The Normalization of Trump By the Press and Social Media as Its Owners Bezos and Zuckerberg Move to Flatter Rather Than Fact-Check Him | At Today's Rambling Press Conference Trump Does Not Rule Out Military Force to Take Back the Panama Canal, Grab Greenland and Make Canada the 51st State | Why is Trump Attacking Our Closest Allies While Cozying up to Our Worst Adversaries?
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Jan 6, 2025 • 1h 3min
January 6, 2025 - Jacob Heilbrunn | Andrew Latham | Thanassis Cambanis
Trump's Orwellian January 6 Victory - Four Years Later Lies Have Won and Truth is Endangered | Today's Resignation of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau After 9 Years in Office | The Need to Lift Sanctions on Syria Before Chaos Consumes a Failed State

Jan 5, 2025 • 1h 3min
January 5, 2025 - Karen Greenberg | Ruth Ben Ghiat | Craig Aaron
Trump's Ominous Response to the Recent Terrorist Attacks | An American Despot is About to Take Charge With So Much More Power Than Hitler Had in 1933 | A Republican Court Kills Net Neutrality to Reward Unpopular and Antiquated Cable and Telecom Giants
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Jan 2, 2025 • 1h 11min
January 2, 2025 - Robert Pape | Chris McGreal | Stephen Wertheim
The Latest on the Investigations Into the New Year's Massacre in New Orleans and the Tesla Cyber Truck Explosion in Front of the Trump Hotel | Contrasting the Divisive Trump With Jimmy Carter Who Tried to Bridge Divides | Could Trump be a Peacemaker Even If He Only Wants to Win a Nobel Prize?
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Jan 1, 2025 • 1h 35min
January 1, 2025 - Wendy Brown | Richard Beck | Brooke Harrington
Will the Democrats Confront the Economic Conditions That Gave Rise to Right Wing Populism? | How 9/11 Made the Trump Presidency Possible and Hollowed Out the Very Idea of Citizenship in the US | Plutocrats No Longer Shape Our Government Behind the Scenes, Musk is Now Giving House Republicans Orders
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Dec 31, 2024 • 1h 18min
December 31, 2024 - Jason Stanley | Gareth Gore | Timothy Shenk
We Should Take Trump at His Word That He Wants to be a Dictator and Jail His Opponents and the Press | A Deep Investigation of the Far-Right Cult Opus Dei and Its Infiltration of American Politics at the Highest Level | With the Blame Game Underway, the Democrats Need to Focus on Accountability and a Coherent Strategy
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Dec 30, 2024 • 1h 15min
December 30, 2024 - Sarah Churchwell | Samuel Moyn | Steve Benen
A View From Abroad as Biden Stands Between the Survival of Global Democracy and the Rule of Law and Dictatorship | Beyond Biden, America Has a Problem With Gerontocracy | How a Reality TV Star Living in His Own Reality Captured the GOP and up to Half of Americans Now Living in a Phony Reality
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