Day: May 7, 2025

Briefings

Background Briefing: May 7, 2025

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After Claiming the Houthis Have Cried Uncle, Next Week in Saudi Arabia Will Trump Announce a Nuclear Deal With Iran?

We begin with Trump’s triumphalism in claiming the Houthis have cried uncle and don’t want to fight any more and assess the likelihood of a broader agreement than a ceasefire with the Houthis emerging next week when Trump visits Saudi Arabia and may announce some kind of nuclear deal with Iran. Joining us is Dr. Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and an expert on religion and politics of the Middle East and North Africa. She has worked as a journalist in Egypt and Yemen and served for a year as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor until recently resigning over US policy on the war in Gaza. We discuss her article at Responsible Statecraft, “Trump deal with the Houthis: Declare victory and go home?”

 

Tit-For-Tat Military Strikes by India and Pakistan Appear Performative Not Escalatory

Then we assess whether the tit-for-tat military strikes by India then Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack in Kashmir are performative as opposed to escalatory given the danger of two nuclear states attacking each other. Joining us is Dr. Sumit Ganguly, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University whose books include Fearful Symmetry: India and Pakistan Under the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons, India Since 1980, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia and his latest book is The Oxford Handbook of Indian Politics.

 

Musk’s Alarming Plan to Build a Single Centralized Database for All the Confidential Government Data DOGE has Scooped Up

Then finally we examine the alarming report in today’s Washington Post that Musk’s DOGE operation plans to build a single centralized database for the vast amount of confidential and even classified personal information on millions of US citizens and residents they have scooped up from many government agencies they have looted. Joining us to discuss the multiple vulnerabilities of this private information that is no longer secure is Faith Williams, the director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight where she leads a team of experts advocating for policy solutions to increase government transparency and accountability. She has expertise in voting rights, voter engagement and religious freedom, and her latest report at the Project on Government Oversight is “What’s Wrong With DOGE? Its Glaring Conflicts of Interest.”