Background Briefing: August 2, 2026

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Raging Fires and Floods of Immigrants Storming Spanish Territory Have PM Sanchez, Who is on Trump’s Hit List, Living on Borrowed Time

We begin with 60,000 Moroccans storming Spanish enclaves in North Africa, many by swimming there since the Spanish Supreme Court ruled migrants arriving by sea could not be deported, and assess the fate of Spain’s embattled PM Pedro Sanchez who is on Trump’s hit list for opposing the Iran war. Joining us from Spain is Sebastiaan Faber, a professor of hispanic studies at Oberlin College. He is the author of a number of books including Anglo-American Hispanists and the Spanish Civil War: Hispanophilia, Commitment, and Discipline, Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photographyand Exhuming Franco: Spain’s Second Transition. He serves as the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, whose quarterly magazine is The Volunteer.  A contributing writer at The Nation Magazine, we discuss his recent articles “Pedro Sánchez Is Living on Borrowed Time” and “How Immigration Transformed Europe’s Most Conservative Capital.”

 

Is Speaker Johnson Protecting an Accused Wife Beater and Child Abuser While Senator Bernie Moreno Attacks Dr. Fauci But Is Slow to Defend the Victim, His Own Daughter?

Then, with a corrupt and depraved criminal in the White House, it is little wonder that Republican members of Congress who grovel at the feet of their dear leader include a number of wretched lowlifes. We discuss how the good “Christian” Speaker of the House is protecting an accused wife-beater and child-abuser Rep. Max Miller, along with the father of the victim Senator Bernie Moreno, who is quick to attack Dr. Fauci with the F word but slow to stand up for his daughter and 2 year old granddaughter. Joining us is Abby Vesoulis, a national politics reporter at Mother Jones magazine where her latest articles we discuss are, “Assault, Misogyny, Verbal Threats: Records Detail New Allegations Against Rep. Max Miller” and “Democrats Call for Ethics Investigation Into Congressman Max Miller.” Since recording our interview with Abby, Senator Moreno has belatedly denounced Congressman Miller. 

 

The More Trump Sinks in the Polls, the More He’s Determined to Steal the Next Election and If He Loses in a Landslide, He’ll Start a Civil War to Stay in Power

Then finally we speak with Robert Pape, a Professor of Political Science and the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism at the University of Chicago specializing in political violence and international security affairs. He is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, and Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. He blogs at The Escalation Trap on Substack and has an article at Foreign Affairs, “Iran and the New Rules of Global Power: The Making and Unmaking of American Dominance.” His new book, out next month, is Our Own Worst Enemies: America and the Age of Violent Populism and we discuss how as Trump sinks further in the polls, his determination to steal the next election increases to the point he will try to overturn a landslide against him even if it risks igniting a new civil war.