Background Briefing: February 12, 2026
Today’s Senate Hearing Grills a White Supremacist, Racist, Homophobic Antisemite Trump Nominated to Interact With the UN and International Organizations
We begin with the confirmation hearing today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for Jeremy Carl to become the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations in spite of his white supremacist, antisemitic and homophobic views and social media posts, since deleted. Joining us is Desirée Cormier Smith, the Co-Founder and Co-President of The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice who was formerly the State Department’s Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice and we discuss how Carl would be in charge of managing relationships with the UN and other international
Will Trump’s Yearning for a Nobel Prize Overwhelm Netanyahu’s Opposition to Making a Nuclear Deal With Iran?
Then we look into Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu yesterday and whether Trump’s yearning for a Nobel Prize overwhelms Netanyahu’s opposition to Trump making a nuclear deal with Iran. Joining us is Mark Fitzpatrick, an Associate Fellow for Strategy, Technology and Arms Control and former Executive Director of the Washington-based Americas office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as former head of the Institute’s work on non-proliferation. He served as US Foreign Service Officer and as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation, and his books include Asia’s Latent Nuclear Powers: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers and The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: Avoiding worst-case outcomes.
With a Lawless DoJ Acting as Trump’s Crooked Law Firm, How do We Protect and Preserve the Rule of Law?
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. She joins us to discuss what can be done to protect and preserve the rule of law when we have a lawless Justice Department that has become Trump’s crooked law firm.