Background Briefing: December 7, 2025
A Former JAG on Hegseth and Trump’s Murder Spree Which Are Not War Crimes Because We are Not at War
We begin with emerging evidence of a war crime following a closed-door intelligence briefing at which a select group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers saw the full video of the September 2 strike on a small boat allegedly shipping drugs to the U.S. In spite of the alternative reality expressed by Senator Cotton, it appears that the second missile strike on Hegseth’s orders to “kill them all” was murder on the high seas and that if and when the public saw the video, the case against Hegseth would be devastating. Joining us is Rachel VanLandingham, a (ret.) USAF Lt Col., the Co-Associate Dean of Research and a Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School as well as a former judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force. During her military career, she served as a senior legal advisor on the international law of armed conflict, military prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, appellate defense attorney and nuclear surety inspector, stationed in the United States, South Korea, and Italy with deployments to the Middle East. She was the legal advisor for international law at Headquarters, U.S. Central Command, where she advised on operational and international legal issues related to the armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Supreme Court Just Gave Republicans 30 of the 38 House Seats in Texas Before a Vote is Cast in November
Then we examine the Supreme Court’s overturning of a lower court in Texas that halted the implementation of a gerrymandered electoral map Trump demanded of Governor Abbott that would give Republicans 30 of the 38 House seats in next year’s election before a vote is cast. Joining us to discuss how Alito’s claim that it was “pure and simple” partisan advantage, not racial gerrymandering, even though the result will disenfranchise the state’s minority voters is Lydia Camarillo, the President of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project a national non-profit non-partisan organization based out of San Antonio, Texas. She plays a key role in developing the tactical strategies for the SVREP nonpartisan voter registration, voter education and get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns. President Clinton and Vice President Gore appointed Lydia to serve as CEO of the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
The Harvard Youth Pollster Who Finds 13% of Americans Between 18 and 29 Say the U.S. is Heading in the Right Direction With Only 39% Supporting Capitalism
Then Background Briefing’s Gen Z reporter Sasha Linden Cohen interviews Jordan Schwartz, a sophomore studying political science at Harvard Kennedy School. He recently co-chaired the Harvard Votes Challenge through the 2024 election, working to get out the vote on campus and beyond. He also serves as the Chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project, which runs the flagship Harvard Youth Poll, the premier survey on the political opinions and civic attitudes of young Americans ages 18-29, which just released their findings for the fall of 2025 which find only 13% of Americans between 18 and 29 say the U.S. is heading in the right direction with only 39% supporting capitalism.
The Naked Partisanship of John Roberts Should be Clear to All As His Gives Trump Unlimited Power and Moves Us Towards a One-Party State
Then finally we speak with Lisa Graves, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the right-wing influence on the US Supreme Court and other levers of power. She leads True North Research and co-hosts Legal AF and has served as a senior advisor in all three branches of the federal government, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a Deputy Chief of the article 3 judges division for the U.S. Courts. She is the author of the new book, Without Precedent: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights and we discuss how Roberts just gave the Republicans 5 more House seats in Texas and is about to kill off the Voting Rights Act and hand Trump the power to fire independent agency officials at will.