Background Briefing: August 21, 2025

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Trump Patrols the Streets of the Nation’s Capital as he Wages War on the Truth 

We begin with Trump patrolling the streets of Washington DC tonight and how he has sabotaged independent sources of knowledge, flooded communications media with disinformation, and is rewriting history to conform to ideology rather than facts, including Trump’s counter-factual charges that crime in Washington is “out of control” despite data that showed violent crime in DC was at a 30-year low. Joining us is Peter Stone, a Washington-based investigative journalist who has covered a wide array of lobbying, legal, and campaign finance issues. He is the author of Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies and the Buying of Washington and currently writes for The Guardian where his latest article we discuss is, “Hallmark of Authoritarianism: Trump banks on loyalists as he wages war on the truth.”

 

A Case For a Real Democracy in the U.S.A.

Then we speak with Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor for The New Republic and a columnist for The Guardian, writing about American politics and culture. He is the author of the new book, just out, The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. We discuss his article at The Nation, “To Make Democracy Work, Give More of It to Workers” and how the U.S. now ranks below the top 15% of democracies today and can be found in the 28% of countries that have “flawed democracies.”