Background Briefing: November 2, 2025
The Man With His Finger on the Button Doesn’t Know What He is Talking About When it Comes to Nuclear Weapons
We begin with more questions arising about Trump’s mental health following his surprise announcement that the US would resume nuclear testing which he based upon dangerously deficient evidence and deep ignorance particularly when you consider that Trump has at his fingertips the power to destroy the world in 30 minutes. Joining us is Joseph Cirincione, Vice Chair of the board for the Center for International Policy and a national security analyst and author with over 35 years of experience working in Washington, D.C. He is the author or editor of seven books, including Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World before It Is Too Late and Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. He previously served as president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation and director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, among other positions. He also worked for over nine years on the professional staff of the Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He writes at the Substack page Strategy and History where his latest article is “Donald Trump’s Deep Nuclear Confusion.”
Trump Doesn’t Need a Reichstag Fire, Mike Johnson Has Already Shut Down the Legislature
Then we look into how the top priority for dictators is to close down their legislature which Hitler did in 1933 using the Reichstag fire as an excuse but Trump needs no such false flag operation since he has Speaker Mike Johnson closing down the congress for him with a House of Representatives which has only convened for 12 days in the last three months and appears ready to shut down indefinitely so that their “Dear Leader” can rule by decree. Joining us is Will Bunch, national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of several books, including The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream. He has won numerous journalism awards and shared the Pulitzer Prize and we discuss his latest articles at the Philadelphia Inquirer, “How an ICE shake-up will bring Chicago-level terror to Philly” and “It didn’t take a Reichstag Fire to burn down Congress.”
An Iranian Journalist Banned by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence on Her Book on the Third Anniversary of the Women, Life, Freedom Movement
Then finally we speak with Fatemeh Jamalpour, a feminist journalist banned from working in Iran by the Ministry of Intelligence. Jamalpour has worked as a freelance reporter for outlets such as The Sunday Times, The Paris Review and the Los Angeles Times, and has also held positions at BBC World News in London and Shargh newspaper in Tehran. She has two master’s degrees in journalism and communication from Northwestern University and Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran and was a 2024-25 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. We will discuss her latest book, which she co-authored with journalist Nilo Tabrizy, FOR THE SUN AFTER LONG NIGHTS, released on the 3-year anniversary of the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran following the death of Mahsa Jîna Amini at the hands of the morality police in Tehran.