Background Briefing: January 20, 2026
On the One Year Anniversary of the Return of Trump On How He Has Weaponized Immigration
We begin on this one year anniversary of the return of Trump which sounds like the title of a cheesy horror movie but unfortunately is proving to be the horrific reality of what we are enduring today. Joining us is Mae Ngai, an historian of immigration to the United States and how it impacts domestic politics as Trump uses the border issue as a weapon against his political enemies by unleashing his private army of ICE thugs on Democratic cities and states with the likelihood they will be used to intimidate Democratic voters in the November midterm elections. She is a Professor of History and Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies at Columbia University. A legal and political historian interested in questions of immigration, citizenship, and nationalism, she is author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America and her latest book is The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics.
Trump’s Billion Dollar a Head Board of Peace and the Reality on the Ground in Gaza
Then we speak with Paul Pillar, the Director of Graduate Studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University. He had a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia and is the author of Terrorism and US Foreign Policy, Negotiating Peace: War Termination as a Bargaining Process and Why America Misunderstands the World. We discuss his article at Responsible Statecraft, “Phase farce: No way ‘Board of Peace’ replaces reality in Gaza.”
The Latest Sellout of the Kurds With Trump Backing the New Syrian Government as it Releases ISIS Prisoners
Then finally we look into the latest sellout of the Kurds who fought with the Americans against ISIS but now are being sacrificed by Trump as ISIS prisoners are being released by the new Syrian government. Joining us is Joshua Landis, the Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Oklahoma. The past president of the Syria Studies Association, he is a fellow at the Quincy Institute and writes “Syria Comment,” a daily newsletter and blog on Syrian politics.