On Background with Susan Crabtree

Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down the California governor's debate between Steve Hilton and Javier Becerra. Becerra named Donald Trump 40 times and ran against the president instead of the man on stage. Susan explains why the front-runner never answered the one question that matters, what the coffee cup gave away, and where Hilton still has a path. 0:00 A CNN debate and a very low bar 2:49...

Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down the China accountability story you will not hear in the summit coverage. Religious persecution. Organ harvesting. A Chinese spy, a McDonald's franchise owner, and the money trail to Gavin Newsom. Susan reports on the underground churches, the prisoners of conscience, and the California investigations most outlets ignore. You get the full picture, sourced a...

Gavin Newsom went fly fishing with Jake Tapper for a month-in-the-making profile. Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down what the staged interview was really doing, and the California fraud stories Tapper never raised. Susan follows the money from ghost daycares in San Diego to a $2 billion Chinese cannabis operation near Mount Shasta, and lays out Newsom's pattern of CCP ties as he eyes the Wh...

Steve Hilton returns to On Background with Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers to lay out the case against Javier Becerra and the closing gap in the California governor's race. He walks through Becerra's record at HHS, the missing migrant children, the corruption case reaching into Sacramento, and the practical agenda he says voters respond to on the ground. 00:00 Steve Hilton returns to On Background...

Meta agreed to settle with 47 states one day before Mark Zuckerberg was set to take the stand. California Attorney General Rob Bonta calls the deal a milestone. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier calls the deal a giveaway. Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers follow the money, run the math, and ask why the number looks so small next to the tobacco settlement of the 1990s. 00:00 Meta's $18 billion s...

Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down a week of accountability stories out of California. A state assembly chief of staff tries to humiliate journalist Nick Shirley on camera, days after Democrats advance a bill to fine reporters who question immigration nonprofits. The FBI seizes Eric Swalwell's devices and searches his home. And a new HHS report, Wolves in White Coats, details how federal do...

𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐄𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 break down a primary night gone sideways. Milwaukee lost five of nine jump drives and held up a razor-thin governor's race until the wee hours of the morning. It fits a pattern the city has repeated for two decades. Then the show turns west: Nancy Pelosi's machine against Scott Wiener, an AI chatbot stunt that collapsed into a racism charge, and Medicaid fraud number...

Susan Crabtree has spent months reporting on a Secret Service losing control of its own ranks. This week the pattern got harder to ignore. A Miami agent wanted his name out of her story. Then police arrested him for leading a near-fatal hazing. Eric Eggers and Susan walk through five agent arrests this year, the resurfaced Vanity Fair essay reopening Gavin Newsom's 2007 affair, and Javier Becerra'...

DHS says it found 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote across four states, with 190,000 in California alone. New Jersey already admitted 6,600 on its own rolls. California refuses to hand over its voter file and rewrote its voter ID ballot measure overnight. Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down the money, the machine, and the fight over the November vote.

A DEA agent seized fentanyl headed for the streets of Albuquerque. His own government punished him for it. On this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree sits down with Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, the law firm representing DEA Special Agent David Howell. Howell blew the whistle on a policy that let hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills keep moving through New Mexico so inv...

John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting joins Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers to talk about performing on the USS Nimitz for America's 250th, bringing a freed hostage on stage to play piano, and why patriotism became a political flashpoint. He explains how a song written after October 7th connected him to hostage families, why he thinks the arts decide the culture war, and what a California flag ban say...

Susan Crabtree and Jed McFatter return to walk through ten figures in Gavin Newsom's political orbit who later faced charges, convictions, or prison. They trace verified election coercion in his first run for San Francisco mayor, the bribery cases reaching into his former staff, and the federal scrutiny now aimed at Jennifer Siebel Newsom's nonprofit and the millions flowing between it and her for...

Newsom says Trump invented an investigation to stop his 2028 run. The truth: prosecutors in Sacramento opened it before Trump took office. A whistleblower came forward last year. His chief of staff already pleaded guilty. Susan Crabtree and Jed McFatter lay out the rest alongside Eric Eggers. 

California's primary is next week and the numbers are wild! A reality TV star is within 1 point of the sitting LA mayor. One Democrat running for governor said on camera that California "needs Chevron" while taking their checks. Another has spent $195 million on ads and is still stuck in the polls. And two Republicans are splitting the vote in a way that may hand the governor's race entirely to De...

Steve Hilton is leading the race for governor of California, and he sat down with Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers to explain why. The numbers tell the story. California ranks 50th out of 50 for opportunity. 50th out of 50 for business climate, ten years in a row. Highest poverty rate, highest unemployment, highest cost of living. Where is the money going? Hilton's Golden Together fraud reports foun...

A gunman opened fire at the White House Correspondents Dinner with the President, Vice President, and most of the Cabinet in the same room. The Secret Service Director called the setup “perfect.” On this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers are joined by former House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz to examine what actually happened, what the agency is still hiding, and why a...

Eric Swalwell's exit from the California governor's race was abrupt. But according to Susan Crabtree, it was not unexpected.   In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers trace the years of rumored misconduct that preceded Swalwell's fall, the political calculation behind his implosion, and what it reveals about access journalism in both California and Washington, D.C. They ex...

California's fraud problem is no longer a local story. Federal investigators are now pursuing thousands of cases tied to state-run programs, and Susan Crabtree has been on this story for months.   In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers detail the scope of what they call California's empire of fraud. They cover the DOJ's Never Say Die hospice fraud arrests, the collapse of...

The California governor’s race takes a chaotic turn as a major televised debate collapses under political pressure. In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers examine what led to the cancellation and what it reveals about the state of California politics.   They break down the criteria used to select candidates, the backlash from excluded campaigns, and how internal party div...

Iran tried to kill President Trump in 2024 and the threats remained active. In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers reveal the assassination plots that came within one day of the Butler shooting.   They explore how the FBI arrested Asif Merchant on July 12th at an Iranian safe house where he discussed Trump rally security details. National security officials warned the Sec...

Gavin Newsom stepped on his own book launch this week with contradictory claims about dyslexia that unraveled under basic scrutiny. In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers break down the disastrous week that exposed a pattern of lies defining Newsom's political career. They explore how Newsom told voters he cannot read while video shows him bragging about reading quickly....

The Hunter Biden investigation became one of the most suppressed stories in American history, but the IRS whistleblowers who exposed the truth are finally telling their side. In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers sit down with Tristan Leavitt, President of Empower Oversight, to reveal the two-year saga of bringing Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler's testimony to Congress.   T...

The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie has gripped the nation, but now serious questions are being raised about how the investigation is being handled. In this episode of On Background, Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers take a closer look at the FBI’s role in the case and whether all available resources are truly being deployed. They explore tensions between federal and local law enforcement, the growing...

California's homelessness scandal explodes in this episode of On Background, as hosts Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers expose how billions in taxpayer dollars vanished into luxury mansions and campaign coffers. The Shangri-La Industries fraud reveals a system where oversight does not exist and political donations buy silence. The company's 28-year-old CFO embezzled millions for a $46,000 monthly ren...