Background Briefing with Ian Masters

March 3, 2026 - Sidney Blumenthal | Sina Toossi | Bruce Schneier by Ian Masters

March 2, 2026 - Thanassis Cambanis | Daryl Kimball | Robert Pape by Ian Masters

Trump's Reality TV War and the Prospect He Will Sell Out The Iranian People Just as He Sold Out the Venezuelan People For Oil | The DoJ Leaks the FBI Reports Bondi Held Back to The Guardian and Breitbart to Discredit Trump's Then 13 Year Old Rape Accuser | Following the Putin-Orban Playbook, Right Wing Trump-Friendly Billionaires Are Buying Up the Mainstream Media backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

With the President of the United States Accused of Raping a 13 Year-Old Girl, the Brazen and Shameless Hypocrisy of Mike Johnson's Christian Nationalists and the MAGA Movement | Sasha Linden Cohen With Heather Ann Thompson on a Crucial Turning Point When Rupert Murdoch Stoked White Rage in the Reagan 80's backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Had All the Democrats Boycotted the State of the Union, Trump Would Have Been Left Insulting Empty Chairs | The Performative Nature of US/Russian Negotiations as Putin Strings Trump Along | The Top 10 Companies Profiting From ICE's Cruelty Host: Ian Masters Producers: Graham FitzGibbon, Asher Price & Sasha Linden Cohen

February 24, 2026 - Tamar Jacoby | Eric Blanc by Ian Masters

February 23, 2026 - Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera | Robert Creamer | Josh Gerstein by Ian Masters

Trump's Tariff Meltdown and What the Supreme Court Ruling Does and Doesn't Do | In a Plea Deal Could Former Prince Andrew Implicate Others Including Trump? | "The Age of Kleptocracy: Geopolitical Power, Private Gain" backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Justice With the Arrest of the Former Prince Andrew in the UK But In Contrast, a Coverup by the Consiglieres at DoJ Protecting the Mob Boss in the Oval Office | Will the Environmental Movement Become More Radical as Trump Kills Off Efforts to Curb Global Warming? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

The Breathtaking and Brazen Corruption of Trump and His Family As They Shamelessly Monetize the Presidency | Thanks to Trump, Trust In Elections is Cratering As Trump Claims They're Rigged, Unless He Happens to Win | Why the US Media is in Crisis and How to Rescue It backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

A Close Friend Who Worked With Jesse Jackson for 40 Years On Jesse's Fight to Give Peace a Chance | The Bloodbath at The Washington Post and Censorship at CBS | The Trump/Republican Crackup Has Begun backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Contrast between AOC and Rubio's Reception in Munich and the Possibility They Will be Running Against Each Other For President | How Trump's Top-Down Fascism Could Meld With Bottom Up Authoritarianism From America's Police Forces and Police Unions | An AI Video Has Hollywood Alarmed They Could Be Replaced By AI as Wall Street Pours Billions Into AI and Tech Bros Buy Up the Media backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Trump and Rubio Turn the Screws of Collective Punishment on the Cuban People | Rubio Makes Nice in Munich Without One Word About Ukraine | Trump Issues a Death Sentence on Our Children, Grandchildren and the Planet With His Payoff to the Fossil Fuel Industry backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Today's Senate Hearing Grills a White Supremacist, Racist, Homophobic Antisemite Trump Nominated to Interact With the UN and international Organizations | Will Trump's Yearning For a Nobel Prize Overwhelm Netanyahu's Opposition to Making a Nuclear Deal With Iran? | With a Lawless DoJ Acting as Trump's Crooked Law Firm, How Do We Protect and Preserve the Rule of Law? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump Has Finally Found His Roy Cohn in the Disgraceful and Corrupt AG Pam Bondi | The Trump and Republican Plan to Prevent a Blowout Electoral Loss in November: The SAVE Act | How to Fight the Oligarchy and Reclaim America With Positive Populism backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump's Demented Rant Warning Canada that China Will Terminate ALL Ice Hockey and Eliminate the Stanley Cup Suggests We are Nearing the 25th Amendment | The Heads of ICE and CBP in the Hot Seat Today Before the House Homeland Security Committee | Why Are So-Called MAGA Intellectuals With All The Power and Billionaire Money, So Angry? backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

America's Cultural/Political Divide on Display at the Super Bowl's Halftime With a Wildly Popular and Joyous Bad Bunny Versus a Washed Up Right Wing MAGA Relic Kid Rock | The History of the Border Patrol's Murderous Impunity | "The Predatory Hegemon: How Trump Wields American Power." backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The DNI Gabbard Covered up an NSA Intercept of Someone Close to Trump Colluding With Foreign Intelligence | How Trump’s Break With the Liberal International Order Was Shaped by Decades of US Policy in the Middle East backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Why Did Tulsi Gabbard Sit on the Most Top Secret Whistleblower Complaint the IC's IG Determined Required "Urgent Concern" For 8 Months? | The Last and Only Nuclear Arms Control Treaty Between the U.S. and Russia Ended Today | Trump's Delusional and Idiotic Call to Resume Nuclear Testing backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump Has Brought About the End of Reactionary Centrism in the Democratic Party | The On and Off Again and On Again Talks Between the US and Iran | The US Occupation of Gaza Has Begun With Trump in Charge Into the Future backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Today's House Votes to Fund the Government With Only 2 Weeks of Funding For DHS During Which Democrats Will Work to Reign in ICE | We are Funding the Warehousing of Immigrants in a Form of Torture To Make Them So Miserable They'll Waive Their Rights and be Deported | The Victimhood Behind Trump's Backlash Presidency backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

The Latest Release of the Epstein Files Contain 9,629 References to Moscow | Compromised DNI Gabbard Seizes Voter Rolls in Georgia as Trump's Plans to Rig Midterms Escalate | Haitians in Springfield Ohio Already Demonized by VP Vance are About to Lose Their Temporary Protected Status backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

How Trump's Working With MS-13 To Help Elect the New President of Honduras Reveals the Real Agenda Behind Trump and Miller's Immigration Cruelty | Tulsi Gabbard's Seizure of the 2020 Ballots in Georgia is About Rigging the 2026 Election | Bondi's Arrest of Don Lemon as a Wakeup Call to All Journalists and Media Owners backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Terrorising Minnesota, the Trump/Miller Administration is Violating the First, Second, Fourth and Tenth Amendments | Bezos's $75 Million Bribe That Avoids Melania's Early "Career" as a Naked Model and Friend of Epstein | Armed and Untouchable: The Deadly History of ICE

Trump Tanks the Dollar After the World Saw a Demented Fool at Davos Rambling Like a Lunatic | The Fight Over State Preemption As Silicon Valley Billionaires Fund a War Chest to Defeat AI Regulation | The Need to Shut Down the Government to Defund ICE Terror

The Influence of Nazi Slogans and White Supremacist Anthems Inside Trump's White House, DHS and Department of Labor | AG Bondi's Attempt to Extort Voter Rolls From Minnesota to End ICE Terror | The Government's Killing of an American Citizen With a Concealed Carry Permit Has Rattled NRA and Gun Rights Advocates backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

The Trickle Down Effect of Trump's Lawlessness and How Ice is Undermining Professional Policing | Similarities Between Hitler's Brown Shirts and Trump's ICE | The Possibility of a Renewed U.S./Israeli Strike on Iran Now That Trump's "Armada" is in Place backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

After Another Shooting in Minneapolis, Can We Believe the Trump Administration As Much As Can We Believe Anything Putin Says? | Trump's Brutal Demolition of the World Order backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Republicans Try to Discredit Jack Smith's Testimony While Trump Calls Him "A Deranged Animal" But Smith Made Clear He Will Not Be Intimidated | The Same Conditions That Dragged Down Biden To Defeat Are Now Weighing On Trump | House and Senate Democratic Leaders Appear Unwilling to Go To the Mat to Reform ICE backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

After Piling on About Biden's Mental Acuity, the Press is Mostly Silent on Trump's Obvious Madness | The Country's Closest Friend and Neighbor is Making Precautionary Military Plans Against a U.S. Invasion Ordered by Trump | Will the Counterculture Led By Artists Rise Again?

On the One Year Anniversary of the Return of Trump On How He Has Weaponized Immigration | Trump's Billion Dollar a Head Board of Peace and the Reality on the Ground in Gaza | The Latest Sellout of the Kurds With Trump Backing the New Syrian Government as it Releases ISIS Prisoners backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

The Caligula Moment of the Madman in the Oval Office Waging War Against Half of Our Country and Our Allies Abroad | The Latest Report From Oxfam "Resisting the Rule of The Rich: Defending Freedom Against Billionaire Power" | Corruption Inside DHS and ICE Awash With $170 Billion to Wage War Against Their Fellow Americans backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump's Resource Imperialism and Imperial Racketeering | The "Putinization" of American Foreign Policy | Israel and Gulf Allies Urged Trump to Pause Bombing Iran as US Naval Assets Head For the Region backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Vance and Rubio Meet With the Foreign Ministers of Denmark and Greenland Amid Mafia-like Threats From Trump | Unconfirmed Reports of an Off Ramp For Trump if Iran Stops the Killings and Delays Executions | The Return of the Fascist Troll Who Bought the Last Election For the Republicans and is About to Buy the Next backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

The DoJ Goes After the Victims Wife While Exonerating the ICE Shooter Who Murdered Renee Good | With Over 3,000 Killed By the Iranian Regime, Will Trump Come to The People's Rescue as Promised? | Can the Europeans and the UN With Its R2P (Responsibility to Protect) Help to Stop the Regime's Killing of Its Own People? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Bondi's Department of Crime Manufactures Trumped Up Charges Against The Fed Chairman | As Violence Escalates Inside Iran, Clashes Between Saudi Arabia and the UAE Intensify | Trump's Assault on America's Election Systems Across Many Fronts backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump, Vance, Hegseth and MAGA's Deadly War on "Woke" Women | Is Iran's Cruel and Corrupt Clerical Government About to Fall? | As Trump Effortlessly Destroys America, a New Cold War Emerges backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump's Government Goon Executes the Kind of Person MAGA Hates, a Liberal White Woman | Did The Venezuelan Leadership Sacrifice Maduro and His Cuban Protectors in A Secret Deal With Trump and Rubio? | Trying to Make Sense of Trump's Belligerent Bluster Over Greenland backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

One Of Trump and Miller's ICE Thugs Just Executed a 37 Year-Old Woman, a Legal Observer, in Minneapolis | No Tyrant in History Had the Power to Destroy Like Trump Has at His Fingertip | A Former Special Counsel to the DOD's General Counsel on Trump's Great Unravelling of International Law backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Republicans Try to Bury the Truth on the Anniversary of January 6 | Trump Has Already Made Life More Miserable For Venezuelan and There in More Misery to Come | Trump and Miller Espouse Imperialism as American Fascism is on the March backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

A Terrorism and Guerrilla War Expert's Warning That "Venezuela is Primed For Resistance...Far Worse Than Iraq. Chaos is Coming..." | Is Trump, Who Does Not Believe in Democracy, Replacing One Dictator With Another? | In Two Months Trump Will be Erecting Another Monument to Himself backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Trump's Monroe Doctrine: Threaten Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil But Support Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras and Ecuador Whose Authoritarian Leaders Like Him and Keep on Maduro's VP While Spurning the Nobel Prize-Winning Leader of Venezuela's Opposition | Trump's Venezuela Oil Grab to Recover "Stolen" U.S. Oil and Then Pump Baby Pump |"Locked And Loaded": Trump Vows to Rescue Iranian Demonstrators From a Brutal Government Whose Economy is Cratering From U.S. Sanctions backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

A Hopeful Welcome to 2026 | Could 2026 Be the Beginning of the End of Trump’s Reign of Ruin? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

An Interview on the Increasing Power of the Unrepresentative Supreme Court | The Ongoing War in Ukraine As It Evolved This Year backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Evidence That Putin Owns Trump is Staring Us in the Face | How Google and Big Tech Are Trying to Stop States From Regulating AI | The Enduring Scandal That Above All His Other Outrages, Might Bring Trump Down backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

We continue to look back on 2025 by reviewing some of our favorite interviews from November and early December: More Damaging Epstein Emails Emerge While the Real Smoking Gun Remains Epsteins Ties to Israeli Intelligence | An Investigation Into the CIA-Run Kill Or Capture Zero Units the D.C. Shooter Worked With | A Former JAG on Hegseth and Trumps Murder Spree Which Are Not War Crimes Because We are Not at War backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

A 2025 Retrospective - We Are Past a Constitutional Crisis and Should be Working on Restoring Our Democracy and Reviving the Constitution | An Activist on a Boat in a Flotilla Heading to Gaza That the Israelis Have Attacked With Drones | Trump and Miller’s National Security Directive NSPM-7 Outlaws the Common Beliefs of Over Half of the Country backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

A Christmas Message | A 2025 Retrospective -The New Hegemon in the Middle East: Israel | Trump’s Dual Strategies of Scaring Off Protests and Instigating Provocations to Enact Fascism backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

Christmas Eve | A Look Back at 2025 Starting In January - A Manifesto to Stand Up in the Face Of Trump’s Firehose of Reactionary Initiatives | Since Musk’s Assault on the Federal Workforce is Only Saving a Pittance, the Real Intention Then Must Be To Cripple the US Government backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia linktr.ee/backgroundbriefing

The Latest Dump of the Epstein Files and Susie Wiles' Expose of the Rot at the Top of the U.S. Government | A Reporter Whose Video of a West Bank Settler Beating An Elderly Palestinian Woman Went Viral Leading to a Rare Arrest backgroundbriefing.org/donate x.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia