BACKGROUND BRIEFING: A radio program featuring international and national news, expert guests, policy makers, and critics offering analysis and insight on national security, foreign and domestic policy, political, cultural, and social issues. Five days a week, Background Briefing asks knowledgeable…
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The Background Briefing with Ian Masters podcast is an excellent source of intelligent and informative discourse on current events. Ian Masters does a phenomenal job of presenting complex issues in a thoughtful and articulate manner. He brings on accomplished and authoritative commentators from around the world, providing a global perspective on the issues at hand. Compared to other news sources, this podcast stands out as being more comprehensive and insightful during chaotic and historic times. Even when Masters slips into "grumpy grandpa" mode, his incredulous questioning adds value to the discussion. Overall, this podcast has been highly educational and I am grateful for it.
One of the best aspects of The Background Briefing with Ian Masters podcast is the choice of interviewees. Masters consistently brings on knowledgeable experts who provide valuable insights into various topics. The questions and remarks by Ian Masters are insightful and well-informed, creating engaging conversations with his guests. The podcast avoids mindless trends and political bias, presenting a fair and unbiased analysis of current affairs. It's impressive how much thoughtful and timely programming is produced every week, showcasing Masters' dedication to delivering high-quality content.
While The Background Briefing with Ian Masters podcast has many strengths, there are a few potential drawbacks. Some listeners may find that the host's biased perspective leans towards what they would consider "reality." However, others may view this as a positive aspect that separates the show from mainstream media's surrender to radical talking points instead of factual analysis. Additionally, although the interviews are insightful, some individuals may prefer a more balanced range of opinions to form their own judgments.
In conclusion, The Background Briefing with Ian Masters podcast is an exceptional source of commentary and analysis on current events. Listeners can expect intelligent discussions with well-chosen guests that provide deeper analyses and insights into pressing issues. While there may be instances where personal biases come through, overall, this podcast offers valuable information for those seeking thoughtful analysis in today's world. Ian Masters' dedication to presenting critical issues with well-informed guests makes this podcast a gem in the media landscape.
Michael Weinstein | Emma Ashford | Sonali Kolhatkar
How John Roberts Has Increased the Power of the Criminal in Charge of the Executive Branch While Weakening the Judicial Branch Whose Rulings Trump Ignores |The 6 Far Right Supreme Court Justices Just Allowed Stephen Miller to Continue Sending Deportees to a Cruel Fate in Third Countries | After 23 Years the US Leaves a Strategic Vacuum in Iraq That Iran is Likely to Fill backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
September 29, 2026 - Nader Hashemi | Paul Eisenstein | Jacob Weisberg by Ian Masters
As Trump Warns the Communist Menace Is About to Take Over the Country, We Enter The CPUSA's Shadowy Lair | Having Cowered the Press Away From Investigating Trump's Ties to Putin, We Explore What Possible Compromat Putin Has on America's Pedophile Protector backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
A President Who Has Always Been Out of His Depth Is Now Losing His Mind |Trump's White House Press Ban Backfires With Xi Annoyed the Western Media Did Not See All the Pomp and Ceremony Trump Laid On For the Chinese Dictator |The Impact of Friday's Supreme Court Ruling Allowing DHS to Build a Database to Purge Voters Based on Trump's Obsessive Lies backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Meets With Xi Praising the Chinese Press While the American Press is Absent Due to Trump's Idiotic Ban | The Corrupt Pay-To-Play Allegations Against Senator Susan Collins | The Decades-Long Campaign to Replace Our Elected Government With Corporate Rule By the World's Richest Men Building a New Political Order
September 23, 2026 - Alex Lawson | Andra Garner | Dulcie Leimbach by Ian Masters
How Will the Bombshell Pay to Play Corruption Report on Senator Susan Collins Impact the Maine Senate Race? | A Report on Today's UN General Assembly Speeches With Trump Threatening to "Annihilate" Iran | How Trump's Mentor Roy Cohn Brought the GOP Back From a Political Wilderness and Shrunk the Democratic Left For Decades backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Major TV Networks Take Away What Trump Craves Most, TV Cameras | Is the Final Battle With Iran Coming Now That Trump Threatens to "Blow the Entire Nation Up"? | California's AG Announces a Deal He Doesn't Like, the Ellison's $111 Billion Paramount-Warners Merger backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Democrats Should Focus Their Campaign on Corruption and Its Link to Affordability, Not Authoritarianism | How a Documentary NAZA Has Israel in Turmoil But If Seen, It Could Force a Reckoning on Gaza |The Need For a Shadow Supreme Court and a Speaker Johnson-Led Coup on January 3, 2027 backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Will Trump Tear Down the Kennedy Center Because They Took His Name Off It? | As Trump's Blockade Squeezes the Iranian People, Rumors of a US/Israel Plan to Deliver a Knockout Blow Either Before Israel's Election or After the US Midterms | Having Lost the Narrows, With Diesel at $6+, Pentagon War Report Admits Worst Drubbing Since Vietnam
We begin with the Fed raising interest rates today by a quarter of a percent with an expectation there will be another increase to 4.1% later this year. Joining us to discuss how this is a response to inflation at 3.7% in July, in part caused by Trump's war on Iran, is Robert Hockett, the Edward Cornell Professor of Law and Finance and a Professor of Public Policy at Cornell University. He has first-hand experience working at the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and continues to consult for a number of US federal, state and local legislators and regulators. His latest books are Money from Nothing Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying About Debt and Learn to Love the Federal Reserve, Financing the Green New Deal: A Plan of Action and Renewal and most recently, Spread the Fed: Distributed Central Banking for Productive Monetary Policy. Then we look into the Senate's blocking of the crypto-friendly Clarity Act in a rebuke to billionaire crypto bros trying to buy the next election while building unpopular data centers to manufacture crypto which has been a huge boon for criminals and scammers engaged in ransomware attacks etc. Joining us is Mark Hays, the Associate Director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress where he works to ensure effective regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency and other financial technologies. Previously, he was the Anti-Money Laundering Campaign Director at Global Witness. Then finally we speak with Donald Moynihan, the Gerald Ford School's J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Previously he served as Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy Chair of Public Policy and the director of the La Follette School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He co-directs the Better Government Lab, which looks for technology and other types of interventions to help government improve access to the social safety net and has an article at his Substack, "China Thank Trump: The Big Winner of Trump's Assault on Higher Ed is America's Chief Geopolitical Rival." We discuss how Trump has untethered himself from reality as he destroys America's economy, alliances, health, education, science, environment, soft power, rule of law, diplomacy and now our military. backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Hangs MbS Out to Dry After Jared "Peacemaker" Kushner Has Made Billions From Gulf Potentates Now at the Mercy of Iran | The U.S. Has Joined An Arms Race in Space | Settlers Are Not Only Invading the West Bank, They're Moving Into Captured Areas of Lebanon and Syria backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump and Mike Johnson's Plan to Steal the Election, Not On November 3 But On January 3, 2027 | Trump Rejects Guardrails on AI In a Race To the Bottom Which China Will Win | Trump Blames Zelensky For the Price of Gas And Diesel While Putin Escalates to Destroy a Country He Can't Conquer backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Iran's Proxies in Yemen and Iraq Shut Down Saudi Oil Exports as Trump and Netanyahu's War Is Hit With More Losses With Iran Now Controlling Two Chokepoints | The Alarm Sounded By An Anthropic Researcher That AI "Could Kill Us All By the End of the Decade" | Modi Tries to Heal Divisions At the BRICS Summit Underway backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
25 Years Later What We Have Learned From 9/11 and What We Have Not Learned From Successive U.S. Government Cover Ups of Saudi Involvement | What Roy Cohn Taught the Wannabe Mafia Boss in the White House | How Farmers Are Getting Screwed While Corporate Food is Killing Us
Pressure on Netanyahu from MbZ Revealing His Warning About the Hamas Attack Was Ignored and Sanctions by the UK, Canada and France on Trade With Settlements | Trump's War on History Targets the First African-American and First Historian to Head the Smithsonian backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Why Do Trump, Kushner and Witkoff Show Such Slavish Deference to Putin? | The Macroeconomic Roots of the Collapse of the Political Center in the U.S. | More People Across the Ideological Spectrum Now Feel That Violence is a Legitimate Means of Resolving Political Disputes backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
While Americans Fight Back Against Big Tech and Billionaire Bros, Some Resort to Violence in This New Era of Class Warfare | The Bipartisan Grassroots Rejection of Data Centers in the Battle Against Tech Oligarchs Who Are Buying the Current Election backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
Germany's Far Right, Supported by Musk, Vance and Putin, Is On the Rise | Russia's Strike on Ukraine's Intel HQ and the Shootout Between Rival Ukrainian Intel Agents |Following an ICE Whistleblowers' Warning, a Journalist With Unusual Access to ICE Officers Discusses Their Opinions and Outlooks backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Death of Gloria Steinem and Her Legacy in the Battle For Women's Rights | A Whistleblower Warns That Trump and DHS Are Using the USPS to Purge Mail-in Ballots Or At the Very Least Cause Chaos in November | Trump's Chronic Narcissism Jumps the Shark With Him Claiming To Be the Greatest President in History backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
September 2, 2026 - Jacob Heilbrunn | Paul Glastris | Ilya Somin by Ian Masters
Every Insecure American Should Have a "Binky" Like Trump's Natalie Harp | With Google Caving to Trump to Rename Lake Ontario Lake America, Canadians Are Now Thinking They'll Have to Defend Their Country From an American Aggressor |Opposition to Data Centers as a Unifying Issue Across the Political Spectrum backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Same DHS Trying to Rig the Election For Trump, Increases Its Cruelty, Sending Haitians Back to a Failed State Run By Violent Gangs | Pentagon Leaders Try to Stop Hegseth Escalating a War He's Lost But Claimed He Won Many Times | Trump's $100 Billion Venezuelan Oil Deal With an Illegitimate Leader and a Shady Businessman Accused of Money Laundering and Black Market Oil Sales backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Crypto and AI Billionaire Bros Are Buying the November Election With Fake Money | Can the Fed Chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury Do Their Job at the Same Time Please Their Boss's Economic Idiocy? | As The CIA Director Warns Putin Not to Take Advantage of U.S. Munitions Shortages, Europe Moves Away From Dependence on American Weapons and Security Guarantees backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
A Report From Nepal on the Horrific Wall of Water That Swept Away Thousands of Lives | How Biden Lost Our Moral Authority in the Middle East Then Trump Destroyed Our Military Power and Credibility | Meta's $18 Billion Settlement After Decades of Damage to Children and Teens By Its Social Media Platforms backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Bought Into Netanyahu's War Against the Advice of His Top Intel and Military Officials | The Gospel of Love Enters Political Campaigns Against Trump, Miller, Harp, Johnson, Vance and Hegseth's Gospel of Hate | Environmental Racism Has the Majority Black City of Gary, Indiana in the Dark As the State's White Republicans Invite in 121 Data Centers to Suck Up All the Electricity backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Has Chief Justice Roberts' Blessing to Have DHS Create a Master List of All Voters Which Will Be Purged Then the USPS Will Send Mail-In Ballots to a Whittled-Down List of Democratic Voters | China's Reaction to Secretary Bessent's Declaration of Economic Warfare Against Iran | The Small Man With a Big Job at the Pentagon's War Against Reporting on What an Incompetent Racist Poseur He Is backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Wages the "Dumbest Trade War In History" Against Canada | Treasury Secretary Bessent Declares Economic Warfare on Iran, Likening it to D Day Promising the IRGC Will Not Kill Their Own People Like When East Germans Rose Up and the Berlin Wall Fell | Gil Duran on His New Book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Two Subjects of American Doctor, a Film That Makes Us Face Our Complicity in Gaza | How The Tate Brothers Fan Barron Trump Helped Get Out the Manosphere Vote in 2024 Which Has Now Turned Against Trump backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Lesson From the Roman Republic of Emperor Augustus As Trump, With the Help of a Gutless Senate, Turns Our Republic Into a Tyranny | Our $40.05 Trillion Debt With the CBO Projecting it Will Climb to $64 Trillion by 2036 backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump's "Binky: The Closest Person to Him Who Feeds Our President Far-Right Conspiratorial Fabrication | How Brendan Carr Wants Putin-Style Media in America Devoted to Our "Dear Leader" | The Results of the Florida Primaries Have a DSA Candidate For Senate Winning and Two Of Trump's Picks Losing backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
As Trump and Hegseth Show Callous Indifference to the Morale of the Rank and File, Signs of Resistance Inside the Military Emerge | A Strategic Overview of Trillions Wasted in the Middle East as Trump Digs the Hole Deeper | Growing Resistance in the Lone Star State to Trump's Border Wall backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Current Iran War Tops the Record As We Keep Losing Wars | Trump's Latest Treasonous Outrage | How a Reactionary Oligarchy Is Capturing Our Politics and Economy backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
As Trump Squanders U.S. Power and Credibility, Former Allies Find Alternatives For Collective Security | Trump's Relentless Assault On the Law as He Finds Workabounds After Being Struck Down By the Courts | The Traitor in the Oval Office Praises Putin and Xi as They Covertly Work With Iran to Kill Americans backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Our Banana Republic Dictator Orders Blanche and Pirro to Punish Innocent Americans For Embarrassing the "Dear Leader" | Iran Plans to Drag Out the Stalemate in the Gulf Past the November Elections to Punish Trump | As Putin Destroys Ukraine Which He Cannot Conquer, VP Vance Leans on Zelensky Not To Bomb Russian Oil Terminals Chevron and Exxon Have Stakes in backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Call For Unity After David Crowley's Narrow Win in Wisconsin | Trump, Miller and Mullin's Sadistic Pleasure Has Haitians in Ohio Facing a Cruel Fate | The Reality of the Real Economy is Biting Republicans backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
After the Democrats Failed Twice to Stop Trump, In the End Will It Be Iran's Theocratic Fanatics Who Bring Him Down? | How To Build a Bridge Between College-Educated Democrats and the Concerns of Working Class Voters | How Did We Get To the Point the World's Most Powerful and Expensive Military is Running Out of Ammo? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Trump Family's Close Ties to the Tate Brothers Who Advocate Rape, Domination and Servility of Women and Girls | Trump Tries to Blame Big Oil For the Price at the Pump After Getting a $Billion in Exchange For Deregulation and the Blocking of Climate Suits | The Turkey/Saudi/Pakistan Defense Pact a Combination of Money, Nukes and Armies. backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Will the Healing Between Progressive Democrats and Centrists Be Set Back By Tuesday's Primary in Wisconsin? | After Damaging Our Economy, Alliances, Health, Education, Science, Environment, Political Stability, National Cohesion and Rule of Law, Trump is Now Ruining Our Military | Cory Doctorow On How To Think About AI Before It's Too Late backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
How Democrats Can Distance Themselves From Nutty Ideas Like Cancelling Thanksgiving and Why Third Way Should Not Waste Money Trashing Democratic Socialists | The Uncanny Parallels Between Hiltler's Project 1933 and Trump's Project 2025 | Trump and His Greedy Family and Treasonous Oligarchs
A Former Michigan Congressman Who Was Defeated by Congresswoman Stevens and AIPAC Money on Abdul El-Sayed's Victory | Has AIPAC's Power As Washington's Kingmaker Peaked? | With Even Trump Criticising Oil Company Profits, China is Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuel Dependence, But Not the U.S. backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Could the Ellisons Walk Away From Their $111 Billion Takeover of Warner Brothers? | Two Craven Republican Senators Accepted Worthless Assurances From Blanche Who Faces an Uncertain Confirmation Vote in the Full Senate | Trump Gives Iran One Day to Make a Deal Over Hormuz Which They Are Doing With Oman Not the U.S backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump Backs Down Then Iran Refutes His Claim He Did So Because They Want to Talk | Has the Fratricide Between the Democrats Running For the US Senate in Michigan Doomed the Party's Chances of Winning Back the Senate? | A Whistleblower Who Revealed Trump and Musk's Illegitimate and Dangerous Dismantling of USAID Host: Ian Masters Producers: Graham FitzGibbon, Asher Price
Is Speaker Johnson Protecting an Accused Wife Beater and Child Abuser While Senator Bernie Moreno Attacks Dr. Fauci But Does Not Defend the Victim, His Own Daughter? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Reviving Their War on Yemen, an Incensed Saudi Leadership Strikes Back at the Houthis | Yesterday's Unseemly Grilling of Fauci by Republican Junkyard Dogs | Similarities Between Stalin's Show Trials and Rand Paul's Ambush of Fauci backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
The Increasing Likelihood Trump Will Escalate His War on Iran | Where Refugees From the MAGA Movement Which Has Captured the GOP Can Find a Home | Dr. Fauci Takes the 5th at Senator's Paul's Ambush Designed to Feed Red Meat to the Anti-Vaxxer, Conspiracy Theorists, Quacks and Crackpots backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
Trump's Meeting With Netanyahu and Hegseth's Shameful Cover Up of U.S. Casualties | How To Heal Divisions Between Centrists and Democratic Socialists Amid Calls For the Embattled Head of the DNC to be Replaced | Guest Host Anna Leah Interviews a Pro-Democracy Activist in the Republic of Georgia Which Like Ukraine, Was Invaded by Russia backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
Facing a Choice to Escalate or Capitulate, Will Netanyahu Talk Trump Into Resuming Their War or Will He Listen to the JCS Chair and VP Telling Him We've Run Out of Ammo? | Could America's Gen Z Learn From the Youthful Rebellion in India Against Their Autocratic Leader? | Could the New Cold War in the Hinterlands of Europe and Asia Lead to WWIII? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
Trump's Latest Attack on Our Good Neighbor to the North | How to Survive Tyranny and Redeem America | The Release of a Cuban Dissident Artist While Rubio Turns the Screws on Collective Punishment backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing
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