The News Roundup For March 27, 2026

0:00This message comes from Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus, get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award-winning service, low costs, and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit Schwab.com to learn more. Hi, it's Nila, your host for this edition of The News Roundup. Just a quick heads-up before we start the show. The news can change fast, and some stories may have developed by the time you hear this episode. You can always stay up-to-date with all the latest by listening to your local NPR member station and visiting npr.org. I'm Nila Boudou, and it's time for The 1A News Roundup. This week, we learned of Pentagon plans to send thousands of U.S. troops to the Middle East.

1:00Meanwhile, here at home, air travel has gone from bad to worse, as the Department of Homeland Security shut down drags on. The president says he will order TSA agents to get paid, and the Senate passes a measure to reopen the DHS. It now heads to the House. We're going to get to all of that plus a landmark social media court decision that it could affect thousands more cases down the line. Joining us today to round up the week's news, Steve Clemens, editor at large for the national interest. Hi, Steve. Greetings, Nila. Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPose. Welcome as always, Arthur. Greetings. And Wendy Benjamin Sin, Washington Senior Editor for Bloomberg News. We're glad you're here, Wendy. Thank you. Let's begin with the latest on the war in Iran. We've been tracking plans for American troop deployments to the region, and this week we learned thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division would be deployed to the Middle East. Here's House Speaker Mike Johnson when asked Wednesday about U.S. boots on the ground. The build-up of troops is very different than boots on the ground.

2:01We don't have boots on the ground. I don't think that's the intention, but I think Iran should watch that build-up. Wendy, what do we know about the plan for these service members, your reaction to Mike Johnson? Well, I mean, he's really, Mike Johnson is really splitting hairs there. Yes, they have not yet invaded Iran, and we don't know that they're going to invade Iran. They're not on the ground. They're not on the way. Boots are on the way, or people are on the way, which I think is, frankly, a better way of describing it, because these are people who are we are putting in harm's way. And so there are a total of about 7,000 troops, either on their way or have already been arrived in the Gulf region, and that's an addition to the soldiers and troops that we already have at our bases along the western side of the Gulf there. The 82nd Airborne, in particular, is interesting because they're sort of the army's emergency response team. They can swoop in by parachute. They can swoop in by other means, and they can quickly, you know, take on a job.

3:03So Trump says he hasn't decided whether he's sending people in or not yet, and there is some speculation that part of the extension that he gave yesterday from the five-day to 10-day extension before the U.S. perhaps carries out its threat to bomb energy infrastructure in Iran, is it's possible that that's the time they need to amass these troops in plans for a cargo island takeover. That is the island that blocks the straight-of-formos. And so there's, that's just speculation at this point, but that would be a reason to delay from five to 10. It also could be, as Trump says, that the talks are going well, but we don't know that since Iran says there are no talks. Are there, do you want to add in here, House, we should make sense of this? Well, there have been statements by Trump and others that things could be wrapping up, that negotiations are going well, we have no idea. It's possible that this deployment of troops is part of the negotiations in a way to make Iran buckle to some demand.

4:06Also, military analysts have said this is not actually enough people for a sustained ground invasion. Their speculation is it could be cargo island, getting the oil infrastructure, or it could be getting the enriched uranium, but even those would be tricky to do and potentially result in mass casualties. The bottom line is we have no idea what they're going to do, just like we don't really know what was the point of this war beyond for excess to kill bad guys. Steve, this week, President Trump presented a 15-point peace plan to Iran that was rejected. What do we know about the actual status of negotiations between Washington and Tehran right now? They're really, really murky. We don't know who is negotiating with whom. We do know that Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan are each trying to play a role interacting with various interlocutors in Iran that we don't know whether they carry the imprimatur

5:09of leadership and power and authority over there or not, but there is a field marshal ahead of the army in Pakistan who is connected both to the IRGC in Iran and is considered by President Trump to be his favorite field marshal in the world. And he seems to be someone who is, in fact, communicating with both sides, but the Iranians continue to say we are not negotiating with the United States even though President Trump has said negotiations have gone surprisingly well. And so it's, in fact, very, very murky on both sides. What we do know is in a 15-point plan, which includes things like Iran giving up its missile defense, not funding any more proxies. Basically, forfeiting its control over the state of Hormuz, these kinds of things are very, very far away from the sovereignty demands and what not that Iran is demanding, particularly that its sovereignty over the strait be recognized that all attacks stop, that it received reparations for these attacks

6:11so we know, in fact, that if negotiations are going on between these interlocutors, we're still very, very far apart from any kind of arrangement or deal. The one other element, because I think it's related to what Arthur just said with the deployment of troops and there's marshalling the U.S. position. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is in France right now to G7-4 in ministers' meeting, trying to get Europe on board with some of what we're doing. If that falls apart, that could harm the U.S. position. If he's successful over there in surprising ways, that might help, in fact, bolster the U.S. position with Iran. Just one other point, if I can jump in very quickly, is that this isn't a bilateral war. There's also Israel, and Israel has shown absolutely no interest in peace talks, absolutely no interest in slowing it down. They have military objectives that they are going to achieve and by God, they say they're going to do it. So even if, in the remotest chance, Iran and the U.S. can come to quick terms,

7:12Israel is not a party to this. They have no interest in it. And to possibly U.S. people being on the ground, we have seen over the last few years that Israel is not, does not always target very carefully its strikes, which is another way that U.S. troops could be in danger. Meanwhile, we know that oil and gas prices have been fluctuating wildly with news of the war. Triple A says the national average is just under $4 a gallon a month ago. It was $2.98 a gallon. We'll say anecdotally, everyone knows as you say this, you think I was just seeing $3.99 in suburban Virginia. My sister in Michigan was telling me it was above $4 there. Wendy, what else can you tell us about the economic impact on American consumers this week? Every time Trump opens his mouth, it says something about the Iran war, the stock market, the bond market, the oil market, gas prices, just gyrate wildly. He has taken later in this week to making these pronouncements either right before the market opens

8:13or right after the market closes. Like that he's considering claiming Iranian oil infrastructure. Exactly. And that causes, well, it also that he'll extend the deadline. He does things to try to calm things down. But then we see what happens during the day and the markets go nuts. But this goes beyond just the markets because the price of diesel is how all our Amazon deliveries and all our other deliveries get to us and all the goods get to the stores. The higher the diesel prices go up and trucking costs go up, the more inflation will go up. Mortgage rates are up. Gold is down. I mean, there is a massive impact on the economy right now and this is the thing that will drive the midterms. You can join the conversation by emailing 1-A-A-W-A-M-U dot org. Are there a new AP Nork poll shows growing concern about those rising gas prices? Also give us a new sense of how Republican voters view the war. We've heard about some tension within the MAGA continent over Iran but less about splits in the broader GOP base.

9:16What did this information tell us this week? Well, it shows Republican voters favor air strikes. They're fine with all that. They don't like boots on the ground and that has them more in line with the broader electorate. So Trump's pushed this, I think, about as far as he can and, of course, nobody likes the higher gas prices but that, again, is something that breaks down partly according to what party voters are in. But this is, you know, it's obviously contrary to what he campaigned on and why he won and that's why Republicans message from Trump to Johnson to Thune is bear with us. The prices will go down again very fast. We just got this email from Greg in Greenwin, Indiana who asks us anyone in the administration or in Congress address the short-term and long-term costs of the military actions in Iran. Arthur, can you give us an update on what we know about costs? Well, there was a report that the White House wants $200 billion to pay for this, which is a very large sum of money.

10:18And we know where estimates are $30 to $40 billion today, is that correct? No, I think that's high. I think it's closer to $1 or $2 billion a day. I'm sorry, so far, I guess. Yes, sorry, total. I mean, not a day. So anyway, the cost is so massive that they're not going to be able to do a regular war supplemental like they would, which would be tough because Democrats don't like this. They're going to have to do it in a reconciliation bill. That's a technical term for party line and Republicans will do it themselves. So the cost of this is massive. I don't know how much that factors in voter thinking, but it's a big deal on Capitol Hill and Republicans are preoccupied with it and have set the wheels in motion to make it happen. Steve, just before we go to a break, what are you hearing from Republicans about this broadly? Well, I think that the broad side of the way to deal with gas, to deal with the energy issues right now, I think they are scrambling.

11:18They were, you heard the President of the United States in the City of the Union address say, gas hadn't been as low as in his memory, etc. And now it's guy high and they're freaking out about affordability. So I think right now they don't see a good pathway through and I don't think the messaging as Arthur just said from John Thune and others is kind of reaching through. And so there's a lot of people that are very worried about how to get out in the field and be convincing when you see that one of the major concerns right now is rising inflation, economists saying inflation is back. Well, we have to take a quick break, but we'll round up more of the week's top headlines right after this. This message comes from Keybank. Every successful business evolves. And to keep up, you need a bank relationship that evolves with you. When you collaborate with Keybank, you don't get one size fits all solutions. Their expansive team of experts across industry verticals is always ready with bespoke solutions for your biggest challenges and opportunities.

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13:21Delivery fee may apply. Back now to the news roundup and we got this message from Jim who says, Iran appears to hold the upper hand because they can keep the straight of Hormuz closed indefinitely until gas prices in the US hit five to six dollars per gallon and the world's on the brink of a financial crisis. Trump's threats to escalate the conflict would only accelerate this financial crisis. Significant concessions would have to be made to Iran to resolve this conflict and Jim wants to know what our panel thinks about this. Wendy, can you start? Well, Jim is absolutely right. In terms of Iran, at least economically holding the upper hand here because of their control over the straight of Hormuz. They see the same economic data that I was just rattling off before the break. They know what is happening in the United States. They know what is happening around the world. And so the longer this goes on, the more pressure will be on the US to ratchet this down and if possible to Israel to ratchet this down. And so yes, the longer they are in control of this,

14:23which I think is why they are also denying any talks are going on even though they have participated somewhat in peace talks because they've lost more than 1,000 people and terrible infrastructure problems. But yeah, if they want to squeeze the world economy and this is something they've always had the power to do and have always threatened to do and now they're doing it. Steve? Well, it turns out that while much of the world worried about Iran eventually getting a nuclear bomb, its real nuclear bomb was the ability to shut down the street of Hormuz. And this has been something that has been something that people feared that military strategists saw would happen if you had a kinetic attack against Iran. And sure enough, Iran has gone to the full extreme of showing its muscle there and is demanding that this war will not end with the United States and Israel until deterrence is reestablished. And that means choking the street of Hormuz only letting through those ships that are friends because some ships are getting through. But not those that are tied into our side of the equation.

15:27And so yes, the street of Hormuz continues to be a vital choke point for oil and energy. It's a 28-mile strip and it's very hard for the United States to geographically impose a different order on that area. So it's going to be an ongoing point of leverage. And another dimension to this talk is the Iranian regime didn't fall with these attacks. It's still very resilient, still very much in control of this. And that's another part of this equation. There is a gas station that is between the U.S. capital, the Heritage Foundation, and Senate Republicans. I know that one well. Yes. The gas at that gas station this week was $5 a gallon. Just thought people would like to hear that. Which is why very few people buy gas and inside the District of Columbia, I should say. But yes. Okay, let's move on from gas to planes and talk about the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security has now been shut down for more than five weeks.

16:28Pressure has been mounting for Congress to make a deal as tens of thousands of TSA agents go without pay. Airport delays grow. Here's acting TSA head. Hawin McNeil on Wednesday testifying before the house. Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off, lost their child care, defaulted on loans, damaged their credit line, and drained their retirement savings. Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood in plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet, all while being expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform. We also know that wait times have been reaching record highs at many US airports. So Americans are seeing and experiencing first hand the impact of this prolonged shutdown. Yesterday, President Trump said he would order the TSA agents to be paid, the where that money would come from is not clear. Meanwhile, the Senate early this morning passed a measure that would fund DHS,

17:30not ICE and Border Patrol. Arthur reporting in Politico described the feeling on Capitol Hill as one of despair this week. Can you tell us the mood? Are we at last on the brink of a deal to end? What on Saturday, I believe, would be the record for the longest shutdown of a federal agency in history. The deal is struck. This shutdown is all but over. The Senate passed the bill. The house is going to pass it. It's just a question of timing based on, you know, parliamentary procedures, the vibe in the Senate this week where I was every day, it was very bleak because they were trading proposals back and forth, you know, without providing much of detail to reporters. But each time they said, well, that's a nonstarter. And it happened every day until yesterday when a Republican, John Kennedy of Louisiana, was coming to the Senate. And he said to me, well, I'm going to just introduce a bill to fund the TSA by itself. Which is what Democrats have been asking for all along. Right. So this was a breakthrough. Republicans did not allow him to do that. They held open a separate vote for hours and hours

18:32and seems to be asking the White House to get Trump to step in. And so he did. And then they said in the Senate, the Senate Republican said, well, okay, well, we'll pass the, we'll fund everything at DHS except ICE and CBP, which is what Democrats had wanted. So nobody got anything. Republicans gave up on the SAVAC. Democrats gave up or, you know, did not achieve any reforms to ICE tactics. And the whole thing was kind of a watch. I think you could say it was a messaging win for Democrats. But with this terrible collateral damage on TSA agents whose salaries are not very high mid five figures typically. And if President Trump can sign in order to get TSA agents paid, why did that not happen much earlier? Well, that is an uncomfortable question that the President has forced us all to ask. And it really made last week, the week before and the week before that seem like kind of a waste of time. I mean, well, and also, I mean, paying if people are selling blood and plasma to get by while they have full-time jobs against agents.

19:35We've never shown Trump. We've never seen Trump in the last 10 years to be particularly empathetic just to to to pain like that. But I wonder if his paying decision to pay them before the Senate deal was struck overnight wasn't a strategy to ease the pressure on House Republicans and even Senate Republicans so that they could drag out the negotiations. Then the wait times would go down at the airport. Then it's like, okay, FEMA's not, you know, or some other agency part of DHS isn't getting funded. That doesn't have that immediate pain point and visible pain point to Americans. So now he was easing the pressure. He was easing the pressure, but maybe not communication was happening between the White House and the Senate. Well, there he was easing the pressure in one sense, but they also were dying to go home. They have a two-week break and it was Thursday and there's this joke in the Senate that, well, do you smell those jet fumes and it's typically Thursday afternoon when they leave?

20:38And they run, they literally run down the steps. Huge motivator, yes. President Trump on Monday sent ICE officers to airports to help alleviate the strain. Wendy, did that help at all? Because despite what we heard from Transportation Secretary, ICE agents are not able to actually use video like the X-ray equipment to screen passengers. Right. Well, Tom Homan on Sunday, it was first Sean Duffy was on saying they were trained. Then Tom Homan came on the show and said, no, they're not trained. So no, they didn't do anything like that. And there's a very famous photo that was circulating online of an ICE agent standing in a corner looking at his phone. And he was leaning against a window where the line of people trying to get through security snake through. So it didn't really help in any major sense. But again, I think this was also a strategy to possibly make the Democrats think it was going to be even worse because we did see that scene in San Francisco where they roughed up a undocumented worker who came in at the San Francisco airport.

21:40I think she, at least they said she was undocumented. I actually have no idea. But they grabbed her and took her out of there. And I think perhaps this was a case where Trump was adding more fuel to the fire instead of taking it away. One Republican Senator did say that immediately. This is punishment for Democrats. They don't like ICE. They got more ICE. I thought what was so striking about the ICE agents, the video and pictures of them sort of meandering through airports is how similar it looks to the National Guardsmen who we still have loitering around and going on walks throughout Washington, D.C. It's just a power flex that makes the president happy. Steve, in the midst of all this DHS chaos, the agency got a new leader. Mark Wayne Mullin was sworn in as Secretary of Homeland Security. Were you expecting from him when it comes to searing the DHS? What have we seen from him? In the first few days, is there's all of this conversation around the tone of DHS changing? Well, former Oklahoma Senator Mullin has pushed out

22:40put out his first tweet and it's saying, my first priority is to end the partisan fighting and reopen the Department of Homeland Security's matter of national security. Let's get to work. You know, we know from him and those, and even some of those senators that voted against him so they like him, expect a kind of no nonsense, tap down the drama, get off the front pages sort of approach. That said, what was really interesting is to see what ICE did. And maybe this is a sort of redefinition of their role from just picking up those that are undocumented, have not violated crimes or working in chef kitchens or whatever that we've seen so much of. And we had a sweep by ICE where they did go after those that had been accused of being child predators, rapists, domestic abusers, etc. So we saw an act of muscle by ICE. It didn't get a lot of attention focused on that. It's sort of the opening act of ICE for their new leader and we'll have to see how he redirect some of this stuff. But most people are expecting him to take an approach very much like Tom Homan, which is to dial down the drama and get off the front pages.

23:44We have a few listeners who wanted to clarify the location of Carg Island. Carg Island is at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, not near the Strait of Hormuz. It is hundreds of miles from the strait, but strategically important, one of our listeners, John and Pennsylvania, just emailed to get to Carg Island. Any US naval ships would have to navigate the Persian Gulf well past the strait, exposing our people and ships to missiles and drones from Iran for over 185 miles on the way. Thank you. Keep the emails coming to 1a at wamu.org. One more note about air travel this week before we move on. A crash at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Sunday killed two young pilots. An air traffic controller gave the go ahead for a fire truck to pass in front of a plane that had just landed. The collision crumpled the nose of the plane. Dozens of passengers were also injured. At least one of the two air traffic controllers on duty at the time was apparently doing several jobs at once. The NTSB is raising concerns about staffing procedures and strains on a system that far predate

24:45the current funding crisis that we've been talking about. Let's move on to this week. The Supreme Court hearing arguments in a case, challenging a Mississippi law that allows the state to count mail-in ballots as long as they're post-marked by election day and received within five business days. Based on what we heard from the justices, the court seems poised to overturn the law. Arthur, we know that more than a dozen other states have similar rules. We likely won't get a ruling until late June or July. How could this affect midterms? I don't know if it's obvious how this would affect midterms. This idea of counting ballots after election day has been controversial since the 2020 election, especially, but it's not like it's just Democrats who do that. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not certain it has an obvious partisan impact. I'm not sure about the partisan impact, but it will have just a logistical effect. Oh, yeah, it may get harder to vote. Right, yeah, there you go.

25:47Yeah, well, just logistically, if we find a thanks, if we find out in July. Right, then many states will have to change their rules for mail-in balloting. And as we know, people don't always pay attention to all the rules about the change in mail-in balloting. And so it could be a logistical nightmare for some of this. Of course, we know the president Trump has long disparaged mail-in ballots. For years, he's claimed without evidence that they're linked to widespread voter fraud on Monday and Memphis. The president said, quote, mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. But less than a week ago, the president and his family voted by mail in a special election in Palm Beach County, home to his Mar-a-Lago Club. State voting records show the president also voted by mail in 2020, when asked on Thursday why he chose to vote by mail. Here's how the president responded. Because I'm president of the United States, and because of the fact that I'm president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida, because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine, taking...

26:47You were in the middle of the last few weeks. That's right. And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot, because I couldn't be there, because I had a lot of different things. But, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, man. Steve, how was the president trying to reconcile his efforts to eliminate mail-in voting due to fraud, and the fact that he himself there was explaining that he's voting by mail? I think the president is able to manage or manage a lot of contradictions in himself, and I think it's very clear. I think when the reporter followed up and asked, hey, you were down in Palm Beach, as were other of his family members, there's obviously a bit of a contradiction in the fact that he's used this before, and this time, using mail-in ballots, people find it a way to be engaged in the political process. And he just kind of ran over the question and said, because I'm president of the United States. So there is no real answer, and we don't know how president Trump necessarily squares the circle here, because he's contradicting himself.

27:48We would never say that that's totally hypocritical. Let's talk about that special election. Despite Trump's January endorsement of the contender, the Republican contender, John Maples, Democrat, political newcomer Emily Gregory flipped that seat, and will represent Palm Beach in the Florida State House. President Trump won that district by 11 points in the 2024 presidential election, Wendy. What does Gregory's win reveal about shifts in the electorate over the last two years? We'll have to see if president Trump's vote was counted, if it wasn't, we're guessing he voted for John Maples, who he endorsed in the race. It certainly made Democrats giddy. I mean, first, there is just another Democratic win in a special election, which Democrats have, I believe, please Arthur, correct me if I'm wrong, swept every special election that has happened pretty much this year. And so that makes them giddy and very, very happy. This is a state legislative seat. Of course, it is right in Trump's neighborhood.

28:50And so we'll see if that really has national implications. It's like the 30th one that Democrats have flipped. Republicans have flipped none. So it tells the story of a possible blue whip. Absolutely. More of the week's news and your questions to come in just a moment. This message comes from Carvana, who makes cars selling easy. Enter your license plate or VIN, get a real offer in minutes, and have your car picked up from your door. Sell your car the easy way with Carvana. Pick up V may apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from strawberry.me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Are you stuck in a job you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Are your reasons for staying really just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from strawberry.me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner and get 50% off your first coaching session at strawberry.me slash NPR.

29:53Support for NPR in the following message come from Warby Parker, the one-stop shop for all your vision needs. They offer expertly crafted prescription eyewear, plus contacts, eye exams, and more. For everything you need to see, visit your nearest Warby Parker store or head to WarbyParker.com. Let's get back to the roundup with this message from Mary in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who says, I just want to add that TSA officers are not the only people going without pay right now. DHS is a big agency. Even when this is resolved, people in CBP and ICE will not be getting paid, right, Wendy? Not quite. CBP and ICE were already getting paid through the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax bill that Trump and the Republicans of Congress passed earlier this year. So their salaries are coming out of that for now. But the listener is right in that it's not just TSA. It's FEMA. It's Homeland Security Investigations.

30:54It's a number of agencies in this massive sprawling bureaucracy that is DHS. And Jim from Omaha asks, won't the TSA delays affect Congress trying to get home and return also a good reason to resolve the problem? Arthur, it was interesting to see Delta Airlines this week saying they're shutting down some special services that are provided for Congress members. But I learned this week that they have special security lines. Congress members used to have to go through. I believe they have their own little parking lot at the airport, and I know that they get free pre-check. But I do think that, like I was saying earlier, the prospect of flying home was making them antsy, and maybe not just because they wanted to leave Washington, but they didn't want to show their faces in the airport. Let's move to a landmark verdict against Big Tech this week in a court in LA. On Wednesday, a jury found that Metta and YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to mental health distress.

31:55Here's Mark Lanier, the lead attorney in the case against Metta and YouTube, talking to Chris Cuomo on his program news nation, celebrating the victory. And that's the sad part is they targeted them, Chris. They didn't just say, hey, let's put an app out there. It would be like tobacco with Joe Campbell saying go out there and start smoking as a kid. It's a really cool thing to do. These companies hired neuroscientists to figure out how the teen brain works so that they could increase viewership with these teen brains. Metta will be forced to pay $4.2 million in damages. YouTube 1.8 million drops in the bucket for companies like Metta and Alphabet. YouTube's parent company, who's revenue last year, totaled nearly $403 billion. Arthur, why are we hearing so many say, though, that this is big text, big tobacco moment? Well, these big cases in California and New Mexico are just two of dozens of lawsuits

32:55that are pending, that are similar, that show through investigations and through other stuff in the public record that these websites are basically like digital Jeffrey Epstein's and they funnel harmful content to children. They connect people who shouldn't be connected. And the victories show how you can win. So there's going to be more and more cases, potentially mass settlements, potentially Congress stepping in. I don't know if lawmakers at this point would want to try to preempt the state laws that are being used in these cases. But there are a bunch of bills that would do so that have a lot of support and other bills that do not that would institute federal laws to clamp down on this. So basically, these social media apps are going to have to change because what they're doing is not working, it's getting them sued and it's costing them money, dropping the bucket for now, but it's going to keep happening. The same day, the Jorian LA handed down their verdict back in Washington, the Trump administration named Silicon Valley leaders to a White House advisory panel

33:56on science and technology that includes Metta's Mark Zuckerberg, also Trump allies, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Mark Andreessen of the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, Steve, what kind of issues is this group expected to address? Yeah, this is this is this P cast group, which is originally, you know, set up by Franklin Roosevelt years ago, and it's always been a powerful committee, but it's had a diverse set of advisors. You know, they're going to be focusing on AI innovation and the national agenda there that's often framed as an existential race with China, how to reduce regulation, how to get companies to, you know, increase the uptake of AI tools, looking at the national security side of this. They kind of also built into this, how do they not fall into censorship, traps as they see them, or what they, what the administration calls, you know, woke legal frames for a lot of this, which really interesting is you went through a number of the people that are, you know, they're Lisa Sue, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell. It's very much an industry group that's largely on the same page with each other,

34:57you know, typically when you have something that's so transformative as AI, you want the, you know, societies advocates as well, those that are worried with child welfare, those in education, those that may represent labor, but this is a very, very narrow cast range of appointees to P cast that are going to be wrestling through these largely tech issues, but not with any of the other kinds of what are the impacts of this, what are the guardrail concerns that we need to have as AI, the AI tsunami kind of increasingly hits the country. We have a question from Janelle about the settlement. Arthur, can I direct this to you? Janelle's asking, where does that settlement go? Does it go to consumers, to government agencies? There's no, there's no mass settlement. I'm sorry, that's something that could potentially happen if these cases. Because this was at an individual. There was an individual in California, and the state of New Mexico sued after doing their own investigation and they got several hundred million dollar verdict. And this, if the state of New Mexico gets that, where does that go?

36:00Well, I am not sure. I believe it goes to the state of New Mexico or to add to the victims, but honestly, I don't know, it's going to be appealed. And this could wind up at the Supreme Court. Right, right. Let's talk about the extreme weather we've seen lately while Hawaii has been hit by catastrophic flooding after several days of back-to-back storms, a record-breaking heat wave expands across large swaths of the US. First, Hawaii, drainage systems are overwhelmed as storms dump five to more than 30 inches of rain. Governor Josh Green told Hawaii News now on Sunday that the storm has already cost more than a billion dollars in damages. Back on the mainland in March, in mid-March, a heat dome settled over the southwestern US. It brought summer-like temperatures averaging about 30 degrees above normal, shattering heat records in places like Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix. This week, it expanded into the Midwest and plains. Meteorologists say this may end up being one of the most expansive heat waves in American history. Meanwhile, here in DC, we're enjoying the peak full bloom of the cherry blossoms.

37:03It's the seventh year in a row that the beautiful blossoms have bloomed earlier than normal, despite the colder than usual Washington winter. I've been enjoying getting out and seeing them. They're beautiful. They look great. Yeah, gorgeous. Absolutely. It's a good reason to come to Washington, DC. Now, we turn to class of, to renewed allegations about President Trump's handling of classified documents that were stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says he obtained a damning memo summarizing special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the case against Trump, a reminder that earlier this year, the case was dismissed and a judge blocked the release of the special counsel's final report. Wendy, what's in this memo? Well, first, one of the things that Congressman Jamie Raskin is talking about is that the fact that he has the memo itself may violate Judge Eileen Cannon's order. What's in the memo is evidence that Donald Trump, this is the case about them finding classified documents or asking if he

38:07had classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago home, he said, no, the archive said, yes, they went back and forth. This was really the clearest cut case against Donald Trump of any of them because there was a paper trail and the documents were found. This memo, however, says that some of those documents were so secret that one of them had been seen only by six people in the United States government. That is incredibly, incredibly secret. And it also showed that he was showing a classified map to people on his plane on the way to his golf club in New Jersey. And then, and Jack Smith said at one point on the document that only six people had seen, he said to his prosecutors, that one we're going to need back. So there was just this, do we know how Jamie Raskin got this document? Arthur. So he said that apparently the Justice Department provided it to the Judiciary

39:11Committee by mistake. So the Justice Department has been giving Republicans on Capitol Hill bits and pieces of Jack Smith's investigation in order for them to say that he had done things wrong or done things corrupt. You may have heard about the targeting of members phone calls in a different case, the January 6th case. And so when something goes to the committee, it goes to both the Republicans and the Democrats. So they got it that way. And Raskin said, quote, quite amazingly, you have in your in your rush to smear Jack Smith, you gave us this damning evidence, the Justice Department told me, no, no, there's nothing violating the gag order in this. We redacted it. And all we saw of the of these documents that the Democrats provided was an airplane manifest that shows that flight and where passengers were sitting on that flight with all their names redacted. What need do we know what Raskin's next move is here? I don't. Arthur doesn't know what he's

40:13saying yet. He asked Pambani tell us who's on that plane. Tell us what the map showed because if this map showed the Middle East, he potentially betrayed our troops ahead of a war that we're now doing. It's also possible that they will that they will rule that the OJ did violate Eileen Cannon's order. It's important to know here that Eileen Cannon dismissed the case. And so there is no active criminal case now on that. And Raskin, he's been on a crusade to get volume two of Jack Smith's report made public. The January 6th election ceiling report is public. Special Council's reports are always made public in Eileen Cannon has kept the documents case sealed. So this is his campaign part of his campaign to make that document public. Now let's turn to another investigation. A federal prosecutor admitted in a closed door hearing this month that the Justice Department did not have evidence of wrongdoing in its criminal probe of the Federal Reserve's building renovations. The investigation is part of President Trump's claims of criminality in the $2.5 billion overhaul of the Fed's headquarters.

41:17Some important background. Trump has long criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell and has been accused of using the building renovation as an excuse to push him out or force him to lower interest rates. Arthur, what happens from here with this investigation? I believe the Justice Department hasn't renounced it even though their subpoenas were quashed and the transcript from this back in front of the judge made them look ridiculous because he's saying, well, whatever it is you have. And they said, we have none, but we're going to find something. And there's already been a tremendous backlash. This is preventing Trump from getting a Fed replacement for Jerome Powell through the Senate. And if they don't drop the appeal and say they'll they're leaving it alone, they won't get that nominee through the Senate. So it's a I would call it an own goal, another own goal for the Trump Justice Department. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller passed away last Friday at the age of 81. His family hasn't confirmed the cause of death, but disclosed Mueller's diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in August 2025. The New York Times said

42:20Mueller imposed the most significant structural and cultural changes in the history of the FBI, becoming director only a week before the 9-11 attacks. In 2017, the Justice Department appointed Mueller as a special counsel for a nearly two year investigation examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In his 2019 report, Mueller concluded that Russia had carried out election interference efforts, but he neither accused nor absolved President Trump of criminal involvement. On Saturday, the president posted on Truth Social Quote, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. His death now raises a larger question. Steve, can I ask, is the country reflects on Robert Mueller's legacy? Does his investigation change the way future presidents may be constrained by the rule of law? I think it does. I think it emboldens future presidents. Both Robert Mueller's finding that there was obstruction of justice. There were certain things without then filing a criminal action in this is going to be seen by other presidents,

43:25potentially, as a weakness in this process that emboldens them, combined with the Supreme Court that came in and said that acts that presidents take within regard of their duties as they see them are largely immune from this kind of thing. So you have both the Supreme Court decision, but also the failure of Mueller to make anything stick. And I think the real finding of this is the Department of Justice actions against the sitting president turned out to be fairly impotent, and that without action and the legal powers embedded in the legislature, this amounts to a lot of sand and fury signifying nothing. And that's really what came after the Mueller investigation. We're almost at the end of the domestic portion here, and I wanted to end with a few listener comments. We got this email from Craig who says, I've personally been through multiple airports this week where I have seen ICE agents helping travelers navigate security points. They were not in the corner on their phone as one of your guests suggested.

44:26We also got this email from Donald in Las Vegas. Our Defense Secretary is reported today to have interfered to block the promotion of black and female officers to one-star rank. This follows his early dismissal of black and females in higher ranks, combined with his Christian nationalism and calls for US troops to ignore the laws of war. He has proven himself unsuited to any high office. When do you actually, in your notebook, you were going to point out this blocking the promotion? Yes, it's part of a pattern that Pete Hegseth has had since he's become the Defense Secretary to return the US military to one that is completely run by white men, even though 43% of the $1 million when millions service members are of color or women. Thanks so much to our guests and to all of you for writing in. Steve Clemens, Editor at Large for the National Interest, Arthur Delaney, Senior Reporter for Huff Post, and Wendy Benjamin Senn, Washington Senior Editor for Bloomberg News.

45:28Don't worry, we're not done for today. We've still got all the global headlines to round up right after this break. Stay with us. This message comes from Carvana, who makes cars selling easy. Enter your license plate or bin, get a real offer in minutes, and have your car picked up from your door. Sell your car the easy way with Carvana. Pick up fee may apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from strawberry.me. If you could go back and talk to your younger self, would you tell yourself that you have a job that truly makes you happy? Many people are stuck in jobs they've outgrown or never really wanted. A career coach from strawberry.me can help you move on to something you actually love. Benefit from having a dedicated coach in your corner and get 50% off your first coaching session at strawberry.me slash NPR. Support for NPR and the following message come from Warby Parker, the one-stop shop for all your vision needs. They offer expertly crafted prescription

46:31eyewear, plus contacts, eye exams, and more. For everything you need to see, visit your nearest Warby Parker store or head to WarbyParker.com. Just a few days. It is so far cost the US tens of billions of dollars. The Pentagon is asking for 200 billion more, but is watching to further away from a diplomatic agreement with Iran that it was in May 2025. The president insisted no this week that Iran was ready to talk and make a deal. They are begging to work out a deal. I don't know if we'll be able to do that. I don't know if we'll be able to do that. They now have the chance that is Iran to permanently abandon their

47:37nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward. We'll see if they want to do it if they don't with their worst nightmare. But Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqshi has said otherwise, appearing on state TV Wednesday evening to say there have been no talks and they have no intention of negotiating. The fact that the talk of negotiations now being raised in itself, a clear admission of defeat. Weren't they previously speaking about unconditional surrender? What has happened now that they are talking about negotiations and requesting them? I will explain that there is no negotiation taking place, but the very fact that they are mobilizing their highest ranking officials to negotiate with the Islamic Republic indicates that they have accepted defeat. The foreign minister also reiterated Iran's authority over the straight of Hormuz, but said it was only closed to the country's enemies and their allies. Vera, we know President Trump has extended the deadline for negotiations with Iran, paused his threat to bomb Iranian energy facilities. He says by another 10 days,

48:40but there's reporting that the Pentagon is also developing military options for a final blow in Iran that could include ground forces and a massive bombing campaign. What do we know about what's going on here? I mean, it's all happening at the same time is kind of what we're seeing. I mean, he's mixing diplomacy with threats and he's kind of trying to blend negotiation with escalation at the same time. You know, when you speak to you as officials, they say he just likes to have all options on the table and he won't pick and choose, but obviously the messaging is quite confusing. The framework, this 15 point framework that he's trying to get them to agree to ultimately is just comes from a position of him having declared victory already a couple of days into the war. And as the Iranians pointed out, there's really no incentive for them to want to agree to that for some really vague relief. And so, you know, they're really kind of talking past each other. Greg, what do you make of, as we're thinking about all of these conflicting messages here, what are you hearing from your sources about how people are making sense of this? Well, it's, you know, we've seen the war fall into this familiar pattern. The U.S. and Israel

49:44are bombing pretty much at will. Iran has absorbed those blows. It's hitting back. It's at a reduced level. But it seems pretty clear that if this pattern keeps playing out day after day, it's not going to end the war militarily. So there's basically two options, escalate or de-escalate. And as Vera mentioned, Trump is sort of going for both. There are these efforts to have some talks that he's mentioning, but he's also sending more troops into the region, possibly for some sort of operation, presumably to go after the Strait of Hormuz, although we don't know that. So it seems in the past week, Trump has reached the point that he knows the pattern that's been established is not going to end quickly in a military victory. He's going to have to either escalate or de-escalate. And in typical Trump fashion, he's trying to leave all his options open. Jacqueline Wednesday, Pakistan confirmed that it had a 15-point piece proposal from the U.S. Vera was just mentioning, can you tell us what's in that? And then Iran followed up with

50:47their own plan, which negotiators from Tehran say is non-negotiable? Yeah, what the U.S. plan looks like is pretty much the conditions that Trump has laid out, and then administration officials have confused a bit. But getting rid of the ballistic missiles, the nuclear program, reopening maritime routes, the Strait of Hormuz. We've seen Iran harden its negotiating position. So it seems like their peace plan has been drones, missiles, sea mines. They came out and shot down this 15-point piece plan. The U.S. move has been to try and go through Pakistan and their army chief. It's not clear that the Iranians are actually going for that gambit. So we'll see. It doesn't seem like the negotiations are at a point where they're serious yet. There was a lot of rumor that JD Vance might go and engage in this Pakistan track. That seems to be shot down. So a lot of smoke on the talks, but no fire. On Tuesday, President Trump said Defense Secretary P. Hegseth was quote, quite disappointed by the prospect of the U.S. negotiating a ceasefire. Here's Hegseth at the White House. Or we negotiate with bombs. You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran

51:53as the president talked about about your future. President has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The war department agrees. Our job is to ensure that. And so we're keeping our hand on that throttle as long as it's hard as it's necessary to ensure the interest of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield. Greg, if the U.S. walks away from this conflict in Iran's paramilitary Islamic revolutionary guard is still in power, what could be the repercussions for this both at home and outside the U.S.? Yeah. I first of all, I think we're not near an end right now based on the information we have in front of us. The revolutionary guards in the Iran regime in general has showed inability to absorb the blows for now for a month. So I think we have to consider the most likely scenario is that they will remain in power. They will claim that is a victory if they simply survive. Now, then they would face, I think, a population at home in Iran that would be very upset at the level of destruction that they've

52:59seen how badly the country has been hit. It will be challenging for President Trump as well, depending on under number of factors, if they is the revolutionary guards or the regime stays in place. If the straight of Hormuz is not open and safe on a seemingly permanent basis, and then the status of Iran's nuclear program. So I think all of these are going to be factors in terms of the U.S. being able to declare a successful outcome here. Yeah. I mean, I think the points you laid out, Greg, sort of the escalate or de-escalate conundrum the administration finds itself in. If it escalates, it goes after things like Carg Island. We've already seen the Iranians harden their defenses there. That looks like a potential quagmire. If they de-escalate, they're potentially stuck with a status quo that doesn't really work, right? You don't have shipping through the straight of Hormuz. You don't have shipping through the Red Sea. That's all bottled up. And then the difficulty of trying to dislodge the Iranian regime, remember the IRGC controls about 25 to 50% of this economy. They

54:02control telecoms. They control construction. It's not as simple as launching a signature strike and getting the next guy out. This is a regime that is deeply, deeply lodged in Iran. Greg, on the first day of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, military forces attacked a school in Minab in southern Iran, hitting that building at least two times and estimated 175 to 180 people. Most of them girls between the ages of seven and twelve were killed. The Pentagon has said they would investigate that incident. What have we heard this week? Well, very little from the US. In fact, not anything at all that I'm aware of. We have heard the UN Human Rights Chief come out and say it's time for the US to tell us what they know. Again, based on what we seem to be available evidence at this point, it seems pretty clear. These were two US Tomahawk missiles that hit this school and looking back. It seems that this was

55:02right next to a revolutionary guard base in southern Iran that 10 or 12 years ago was part of that base, but then became a school and perhaps that information was not updated. Pete Hagset, the Defense Secretary, has only said that this is being investigated and there was reports of a preliminary Pentagon investigation pointing to US missiles that struck the school. But the Pentagon has not said anything further. Now we have the UN Human Rights Chief pushing for the US to come out and tell us what they know. Harriet asks this question. I have heard that many US military bases in the region have been effectively reduced to rubble. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, the situation has been pretty bad. You've lost already a TP radar in Qatar. That's a huge radar. You've seen the Russians involved in targeting. Yeah, I mean, some of these attacks as the New York Times have reported has forced some US troops into remote work. This is a very awkward situation and it shows. I mean,

56:04the difficulty of trying to keep these bases open, trying to keep these air spaces open while these attacks are going on. The US doesn't have very effective counter drone weapons as we saw tragically happen in Kuwait, but also if you're involved in populated areas, it's very hard to knock down drones. You can't jam them like you do on the Ukrainian battlefield. So this is a difficulty the US is dealing with this air defense problem here. That's right. And I think it's also important to remember the US diplomatic facilities have been quite impacted as well. We seen a lot of embassies basically shuttered to a skeleton crew. A lot of them have had to close. A lot of people have had to leave. And again, this is coming out of time. We're engaging with, you know, golf nations with all these allies in the region is really important. Here's Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking earlier this week. The seat on President Trump believes there's a chance to leverage the tremendous achievements of the IDF and the US military in order to realize the war's objectives in an agreement and agreement that will safeguard our vital interests. At the same time, we continue to strike both Iran and in Lebanon. We're going to talk about Lebanon a little bit more in a minute,

57:10but Vera this week Israel carried out extensive strikes across Iran, Tehran launched more attacks on Tel Aviv. This is a joint US and Israeli military operation. What is Israel saying about their interest in negotiating an end to a war in Iran? I mean, for now, there's really a little sign that they're being slowed down by these negotiations. You know, obviously, there's strategy is pressuring first as much as they can, as hard as they can for as long as they can. And then eventually, you know, obviously engaging in this diplomacy. But in terms of these attacks that we're seeing on on Tel Aviv and we've seen across Israel, we haven't really reported any indication that this is changing their posture or that it is bringing them to the table any more quickly. You know, again, Israel just thinks that, you know, they don't want to wound it around. They want, you know, they have a much more maximalist posture. They want, you know, their goals just go further than the United States. And so they want more battlefield gains. They want to get as much as they can in the time frame that's possible. I mean, the big question here is one that we've been battering around on the roundup for the last several weeks, which is

58:13where are we seeing Tel Aviv in Washington diverge when it comes to an off ramp from this war? Greg, can I start with you? Yeah, sure. Again, I think broadly speaking, they're pretty much aligned. I think it's done a lot of the specifics. The Israel, as Vera said, really wants to see the regime toppled there and Iran's military reduced as much as possible. The U.S., and I think from Trump's perspective, he might be willing to settle for something short of that. The pressure on the Strait of Hormuz in the oil, that's more a problem for Trump in the U.S. and the global economy. Israel doesn't really have to worry about that as much. And meanwhile, Israel is very heavily focused on Lebanon, his Bala in Lebanon, and possibly seizing territory, sort of redoing the occupation it had for 20 years in the 80s and 90s. So when you get into the specifics, they have some different goals there. But when it comes to Iran, broadly speaking, they're still pretty much aligned.

59:18Greg, can I just ask, if Israel's goal is regime change in Iran, and that really hasn't happened yet, militarily, what are national security sources and folks saying about if that's likely to happen now? Yeah, I mean, the U.S. and Israel say they've hit more than 15,000 targets in Iran. You actually get to a point in many wars, and perhaps in this one as well, where you start to run out of targets. I mean, there's certainly individual thing, individual leaders. Israel is still going after they hit the naval leader in Iran in the recent days, missile launch sites, drone sites, or factories. So there's not, as long as they're still shooting going both ways, there are still targets. But you get to the point where what targets do you have left? It's more about achieving the objective, and you can take out individual targets, but the regime is still in place. And this is why we are, you seem in the past week or two, to be hitting that point, where what is the

1:00:20strategy now? How are you going to weaken that regime or bring concessions when you've hit 15,000 targets? The 15,000 in first target is not going to seem to change the overall trajectory of the war. Jack, your thoughts, Israel and U.S. and goals? Well, yeah, I mean, I think since October 7th, you've had an Israeli government that's just determined to reset the security context throughout the region in Lebanon. They've even struck the Houthis and Houthi ports in Yemen. Of course, Iran now, a major focus for them last year, and this year. And there's also the political context in Israel, right? Benjamin Netanyahu remains on trial for bribery and corruption charges. So if he is to lose power, he could face these allegations all over again. So there's the political context that's going on in Israel, there's the security interest, which I think there's more alignment in the Israeli political sphere. And the U.S. is a bit along for the ride on some of these proposals. And it seems like just

1:01:22with regards to Lebanon, with some of the other theaters, U.S. also kind of playing ball and at least having a supportive role towards these Israelis. Let's talk about Gulf countries that previously helped manage tensions with Iran. As prior to this conflict, many view the six GCC or Gulf Cooperation Council countries as holding the keys to resolving widespread concerns about Iran in way short of war. But almost immediately after U.S. and Israeli strikes began Iran targeted, GCC oil and gas, infrastructure and commercial interests, the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council said this week, Iran is violating the UN's law of the sea by charging vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Here's GCC Secretary General Jossim Al-Budaywi. Iran's disabilizing behavior in the Arabian Gulf has exceeded all limits. As it has closed the Strait of Hormuz, preventing the passage of commercial ships and oil tankers and imposed fees for crossing the Strait. This is a blatant violation of the United Nations Convention on the

1:02:27Law of the Sea. What kind of solution are these Gulf countries looking for here? I think, you know, they're realizing that their old hedge when it came to Iran has really just broken down under these wartime conditions. And, you know, now they're trying to work with the U.S. and just in general towards figuring out what comes next, what's, you know, once this kind of perceived invincibility or this status quo has broken down, you know, they can harden their defenses, they can work with the United States on protecting their shared economic interests. But most importantly, I think, you know, it's also a spectrum. They're not a monolith. You've got a couple of them that have become a lot more aggressive and others that really don't want to be pulled into basically being cobaligerents. And when you speak to U.S. officials with experience in their regions or experts, they say that's where the success is really going to be kind of allowing them, not forcing all of them into the same political posture while trying to unite them in this whatever comes next after this war. Right. Because this is Bahrain, Kuwait, Aman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE on Tuesday. The New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia's

1:03:30de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been urging President Trump to continue the war against Iran and put boots on the ground. Greg, what do we learn from that reporting? Well, it's always much easier for a leader to call for another country to go fight and die for a century. That's the sacrifice many leaders are willing to make. And I think what we've seen is this switch in policy among the Gulf country, Saudi and some of the others, they really lobbied against the war. They did not want this war to begin. But now, once it has begun, they want a very conclusive end. They want to see Iran weakened, contained. They don't want this war to end. And their big concern is really that Trump will just say, okay, war is over, we're pulling out. And then they'll be left to clean up a lot of the mess. In Iran, has crossed this threshold of attacking the Gulf countries, which certainly shocked them at the beginning. They've taken more hits than Israel and the US military bases. So they've been the primary target. And they could see that happening in the future. Their economies are

1:04:34totally dependent on exporting oil and gas through the strait. They don't want to leave that insecure. And they're very brand is stability, predictability and international business center in Saudi and UAE and Qatar. And that is totally blown up if you have a war that ends with the region still unstable. So they have great concerns about how this war ends. Jack, can I just ask, we saw this week Iran hitting several sites in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. What are the ripple effects in Saudi Arabia as Greg is just talking about in terms of them actually facing the physical consequences of this? Well, it seems like for all intents and purposes, MBS wants this to continue. You see even in the UAE, which has taken the most casualties in the region, they don't want to live next door to an Iranian missile and drone program. Problem is a lot of these countries have been firing off patriot interceptors that are provided like the United States, basically like their candy. And you have an issue where the US can't

1:05:38restock these stockpiles, probably can't restock the Ukrainians. They're at a point where they're under water on these munitions. And then I mean, you just get to the problem of what is the post-war settlement going to look like. Since the 1980s, we had the Carter doctrine. That's kind of fallen apart. The idea of the US is going to protect the oil coming out of the region. But the Qatar is one country that are really pushing to have a role in the post-war security arrangement for the region. I'll just add to Jack, one of the minor miracles of the Middle East has been that the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has been open to oil shipping. We saw this in the 1980s when Iran and Iraq fought a war and the US ultimately got involved to escort some of the tankers. The beginning of the Gulf War with the US versus Iraq in 90 and 91, there were disruptions. And so that seed was planted about how the potential damage if the Strait is closed. Despite all of the turbulence over the past 35 years in the Middle East, the Strait has remained open. Now it's come

1:06:40back with a vengeance right now. And we'll have to see, is it going to go back to what we've seen for the past 35 years? Or have we entered a new era where it will continually be a point, a flashpoint or a potential flashpoint? Farah, what do we know about US intelligence? How much they anticipated a problem like this before getting involved with this engagement? I mean, everything that's been coming out for the last couple of weeks, I guess, since this war began. Again, US intelligence is very extensive. I mean, it's really unlike in all of these things were things that even the public could see from the outside was likely going to happen. You can just look at a map. Right. So I mean, a lot of this, when a lot of the coverage because that's our job, is to figure out what was actually briefed to the president. When was this communicated? But again, a lot of this is very simple stuff. And the idea that this wouldn't have been briefed to the president as part of a, in terms of military options and the military consequences. You know, everything that's been coming out is fairly, fairly apparent. The real question is, you know, where did they make decisions or were the military options presented with, you know,

1:07:41while really understanding the timeline for these consequences? That's what we're seeing now, is, you know, how long did they really play these scenarios out that they expect months into the future? You know, that's what we're seeing a lot of this breakdown, at least when, you know, you see what the president is saying. There is another front in Israel's war, Lebanon, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people. This week, Israel said it would establish a security zone in the south of Lebanon, where residents have had to flee to shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily rocket attacks since the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group joined the war. Here's his really prime minister. We have created a genuine security zone that does not allow a ground infiltration towards the Galilee or the northern border. We are expanding the security zone to push the threat from anti-tank missiles on our communities and on our territory. We are simply creating a large buffer zone. A reminder in November 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, and Israeli forces gradually withdrew from most of southern Lebanon. Israel has accused Lebanon's

1:08:46government of failing to carry out its pledge to disarm Hezbollah, despite its unprecedented steps towards criminalizing the group. Jack, we know that Hezbollah said it would fight any move to establish a security zone by Israel. So what effect if any are we seeing the war in Lebanon having on U.S. negotiations with Iran? I think long story short, it's not driving the administration's calculus. I mean, the one thing I think this could do is continue to expand the net of proxy groups that are jumping into the war. I mean, of course, Hezbollah and Israel is one front. We haven't seen the Houthis pop in. That could be something that could happen because, of course, we've had in the past those Israeli attacks on the Houthi groups. But I think this speaks to Israel's strategy because the Lebanese have been pushing and pushing for talks. The Israelis have never taken this seriously. And basically, the feeling has been, as Netanyahu said, if you're not going to go in and disarm Hezbollah, we're going to do it ourselves. Greg, since joining the war, Hezbollah has kept up missile and drone attacks into northern Israel. We noted that Israel's

1:09:49response has killed more than 1,000 Lebanese people, a figure that doesn't differentiate between civilians and fighters displaced about one million people. That's a fifth of the country's population. Why is this war being embraced by Hezbollah? Boy, I'm having a few flashbacks here. I covered the Israeli Hezbollah war in 96 from the Lebanese side in 2006 from the Israeli side and in the past couple of years. This has been Hezbollah's reason to exist. Iran created Hezbollah in the 1980s to be their sort of forward forces to fight Israel. And then we saw that in the 1980s and 1990s when Israel set up this self-described security zone in South Lebanon. Israel left in 2000 and said, and I just remember at that time, I was living in Jerusalem and talking to Israeli security officials at the time saying, thank goodness, we're out of southern Lebanon. We don't want to be there. It's a nightmare. And yet, here they go again. Hezbollah, I think, is doing this because they're being pressured by Iran, which established

1:10:53them and funds them and for exactly for this purpose to fight Israel. It's really their reason to exist. Hezbollah, though, is getting pushed back from the Lebanese government now, which doesn't want them doing this. It's just leading to further destruction in Lebanon with no positive outcome on the horizon. So it's just round five or six or however you want to count. And it's causing enormous hardship in Lebanon with it's hard to see how anything positive is going to come out of this. Jack, Farah, I wonder how, as we were just talking earlier about the GCC, where does Lebanon factor into all of this? I mean, I think it's a bit of a separate theater. This is something that, you know, Israel has been very intent on. And remember, Hezbollah sort of before the October 7th, before everything went on, was one of the most powerful Iranian proxies. They have a huge magazine of ballistic missiles. They had a very powerful leader in Hassan Nasrallah. And

1:11:55Nasrallah, of course, is off the map since October of 2024 when the Israelis killed them. And so you have a situation where they're continually degraded. I think this is really the Israeli mission to try and degrade and destroy Hezbollah. Now, of course, Hezbollah active in other countries, Iraq most prominently. But I think this is the mission of the Israelis to get them off the board. The U.S. kind of hasn't been present here. On Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel, quote, seeks to inflict the same level of damage and destruction on Lebanon as in the Gaza strip. More than 4 million people have been displaced in Iran and Lebanon, and embolded Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose aim is to inflict on Lebanon the same destruction and suffering as that inflicted on Gaza. A cruel and illegal response by an Iranian regime towards its neighboring countries, which we, of course, condemn and reject, because one act of illegality cannot be met with another. Farah, Sanchez has been one of the few leaders in Europe to condemn Israel's war

1:12:58in Lebanon and the U.S. Israel war on Iran. How are European leaders watching events? What other reactions have we heard? No, Sanchez has been unusually blunt, you know, calling the war itself illegal and in really aggressively criticizing both the U.S. and Israel. But, you know, he's not too far off when it comes to the rest of Europe. I mean, Europe has been fairly clear most other countries. This is not our war. And, you know, despite Trump's threats and, you know, him kind of asking them to get more involved, they have, you know, they've said, we're not going to join the fighting. We're not really going to be engaging at all with that. You know, the Germans in particular have been pretty blunt, saying we weren't consulted. But, you know, today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in France meeting with his counterparts at the G7. And what's coming out of that is largely them saying, we will help you manage the fallout. We will help you with a day after plan. We're not going to join on the side of the fighting, but when it comes to pushing de-escalation, helping with diplomacy, protecting civilians, and, you know, protecting our mutual shared interests afterwards,

1:13:59that's something we want to do together. Yeah, I mean, the Europeans do not have a lot of military assets to roll through a region if they're trying to do an escort mission in the straight-up hormones. And I think Vera had been now on the head, right? I mean, the message from Europe mostly has been, it's not our war, other than NATO chief Mark Ruta, who's been very, very supportive of the US war effort, pretty much saying it's something that he's on board with, well, not committing European forces or European support. But you see some knock-on effects already. There's been a lot of talk in the news after the Washington's post-reporting that the Pentagon might divert supplies from the Pearl program. That's Ukraine's air defense program to the US to restock pile some of those funds. So we may see that. And that warning is coming through from Marco Rubio as well to European allies at the G7. So that's something to watch, just these knock-on effects taking place on Europe from this war. Yeah, we'll get to Ukraine in a little bit. But let's first go to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. On Saturday, during

1:15:03E.D. Elfitter celebrations, marking the end of Ramadan, Israeli settlers attacked multiple Palestinian communities overnight. Eyewitnesses in two Palestinian towns said a hundred masked settlers raided homes and set vehicles on fire. Witnesses told the Guardian that Israeli troops and police were nearby, but didn't intervene. March has seen escalating violence in the West Bank. On March 2nd, Israeli settlers shot and killed two Palestinian men, brothers in their 20s during a confrontation over settlers trying to enter one of the brothers' homes. On March 15th, Israeli troops killed four members from a family of six who were driving home from a shopping trip, including the parents and two young brothers, five-year-old Muhammad and six-year-old in total. The Israeli attacks have killed ten Palestinian civilians this month and more than a thousand people since October 2023. Jack, we know that settler violence in the region and attacks on Palestinians are not new. What do we know about what's led to this violence becoming more frequent

1:16:04now? Well, you see settlement expansion and that's certainly been pushed from some of the highest levels of Netanyahu's government. You see Israeli officials coming out to the West Bank, putting out maps, making plans for what they want the West Bank to look like. You see settlers now in direct contact with Palestinians. That's led to a lot of conflict and violence from the Israeli side, and you don't see many convictions in Israeli courts for these types of crimes as these incidents continue to rise, and they include arson assaults, killings. One thing that's very interesting, Nile, this week we've seen, members of Congress who are supportive of Israel, usually, that's Ruben Gallego, Richie Torres, people like Daniel Goldman, now stepping out and saying, hey, this violence is unacceptable. So that's kind of an interesting shift that you see as Israel's getting a little bit more unpopular, at least in Congress, people denouncing this violence. Speaking of Gaza, this week President Trump's board of peace discussed its plan for the strip with the UN Security Council, including a proposal the board says would disarm Hamas and other

1:17:08armed groups in Gaza. Vera, how would this disarming work? I mean, they're still really working out the specifics. They're talking about these different five stages over eight months, but I think the most important part is the sequencing, and that's kind of what the sticking point is here, is that it's basically asking them to disarm in several phases, and then destroy tunnels, basically to militarize before a lot of the reconstruction and rebuilding, and the other part happens. And it's basically making these factions give up all the core military leverage early, before while they still have a lot of distrust that Israel is going to hold up, it's end of the bargain. And that's really kind of becoming, the criticism there has been that these are irreversible concessions that they have to do up front, and it's still unclear if that's really going to be feasible. How is the board said that Hamas disarming would lead to the reconstruction of Gaza? It's more that, you know, that's the first part of it, that they first

1:18:09have to go through this arming process before the other things that are on the table are going to happen. But again, you know, just given the situation on the ground and the way that these, the distrust that exists between them, you know, it's not really clear that that's going to work that way, that they can completely give up everything they have, and then just trust that Israel is going to hold up, it's end. Right, Jack, that's what I was going to ask what pressure might Israel face over the West Bank as we see these detailed plans for Gaza. I think you see pressure from Congress, you're not going to see pressure from the administration or things like the board of peace. I mean, we have been moving over the past few years to, you know, potential support for cutting some of Israel's aid, but it's still not a popular position. So, I mean, I don't expect that to change right now, especially when you have a war in the Gulf that's threatening Israel's air defense supplies. Those will probably be easily restocked this year. Yeah, with all the turmoil we've seen in the Middle East the past couple of years, the Israeli settler expansion and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank just hasn't gotten much attention. I've been there several times over

1:19:14the past couple of years covering the Gaza war, but I've also traveled out to the West Bank, and it has absolutely been stunning to me to see how much the expansion is taking place with new settlement outposts appearing on all these hilltops in the West Bank. Just far beyond what we've seen in the past, and the settlements have continued to grow. The big permanent settlements that Israel has built continue to expand, but it's all of these new outposts, and the Palestinians just have less and less room to operate there, and this just hasn't received, it may even be, periodically hear a report about this or the violence we've just heard about, but it is quite striking to see it for yourself, how thoroughly the Jewish settlers have established themselves on hilltops in the West Bank. Greg, can you just explain a little bit more of that as someone who has been there? When you say permanent settlements, like, what does that look like? What do you see? And then you're saying as they're sort of expanding across hilltops?

1:20:16Right, so you've got a couple things. You've got places in the West Bank that are cities, like Ariel. It's got 20,000, 30,000 people. It's got a university there. It's got factories. It's got tennis courts and swimming pools. I mean, these are suburbs that have been there for decades. And then you will literally see a small group, and I'm talking two or three or five Jewish settlers set up a trailer on a hilltop with no electricity, no water. That's what I was going to ask is there electricity in your water? No, no. And then eventually, even though it's not been formalized through the Israeli political process, it may somehow get connected to the electrical grid. They may, a water pipe may be run up there. The military, the Israeli military knows it's there. We'll make sure it doesn't get attacked. And literally, over five, 10 years, then it becomes semi-permanent. And then it may get some sort of formal approval in the Israeli legislature. And then the next thing you know, it's got, you know,

1:21:19dozens or hundreds of families there. And then, and the families and the Palestinian families that were there previously? Well, they're not there. These are uninhabited. Right, so they're finding uninhabited. Right. And down in the valley below, there's a Palestinian town that's been there for generations. And suddenly, they can't move as freely. They maybe they can't go to their fields. They're worried about being attacked by the settlers, the Israeli military places restrictions on them. And so it becomes a real point of conflict. Jack, we have seen the international community speak out very forcefully against this. What, as you had mentioned earlier, given everything else that's going on in the world, do we feel like this has sort of maybe faded into the background of what unraw or what other what we're hearing from other international fields about this? It's not registering right now. This tends to be cyclical, right? You hear from European governments at big crossroads moments in the year. So I mean, as we head towards Ungun September, I mean, that's six months away. But we're likely to hear more from European governments around that time when there could be a general assembly action on on something that Israel's doing, whether it's the

1:22:24West Bank or Gaza. But I don't expect anything for the time being. Before our time is up, I want to touch on Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is now in year five. This week, Russia began a spring offensive firing almost 1,000 drones, 34 missiles into Ukraine. Ukraine hit back with nearly 400 drones on Wednesday and an overnight attack on Russian territories in Crimea. Greg, what is Russia likely aiming to do in this offensive, given the state of the peace talks and the US's focus on shifting to the war with Iran? I think the Russian objective will be the same as it's been for the past four years. It will hurl large numbers of troops at the Donbass region and try to advance and take over territory. They have not been able to win for four years. They've taken essentially the same approach, which is just tried to overwhelm the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have been very creative and found ways with a much smaller force to keep these

1:23:26Russians at bay. Typically, we see the fighting slow in the winter when it's cold and wet and muddy and difficult to move around than it picks up in the spring and the summer. So you would certainly expect that to come, but it's not clear why you're going to have a different outcome. We've already seen this week Russia fired a thousand drones at a night, all-time record at Ukraine. Ukraine said it sat down 95 percent of them. There was some damage, but not a lot. So Russia keeps thinking just sheer volume in terms of troops, drones, missiles will overwhelm Ukraine. It hasn't happened, but we should certainly expect to see this play out again in the spring and summer. I want to get to European leaders reaction to all of this, but Jack, first can I just ask you, Pentagon officials said last Friday, the U.S. military moved Patriot air defense missiles systems from Germany to Turkey. Iran has fired multiple missiles into Turkey over the past month. Officials also said Patriot missile stocks were dwindling in Europe and other regions because of

1:24:27the war. Vladimir Zelensky said the move was, quote, not the right decision and would enable Russia spring campaign. The big question is, how does if this war with Iran continues to draw out, how does this affect Ukraine's ability to fight back against Russia? The big thing is knocking down Russian ballistic and cruise missiles, because the U.S. has a little over, you know, near 2000 Patriot missiles in the arsenal. They're spending a lot of them in the Middle East. There's talk they might have to divert some of those supplies from elsewhere. If the Ukrainians can't shoot down those missiles, that could mean major damage to cities, of course, the targeting of Kiev and the energy grid was something over the winter. We may see those types of targets to continue to pick up for the Russians. Ukrainians are very adept at trying to do this knocking down of drones with their own interceptors, usually drone to drone interceptors. So it seems like the Ukrainians are trying to leverage their problem to get a deal for something from the U.S., but we'll see what happens there.

1:25:28Vera, where are we hearing from European leaders on all of this is, you know, we were hearing Jaxe earlier, Marco Ruta has been supportive verbally of President Trump's war into Iran, but there's a big war happening, and much closer to home for them. That's right, and that's been their big challenge. I mean, we saw the German Chancellor, who met with the first European leader to meet with Trump in the first week of this war. You know, he showed up at the White House to talk about Iran to an extent, but, you know, with a big map of Ukraine under his arm in order to remind him of what's going on, you know, they are trying to, again, that's why the, as Jaxe has pointed out, they're walking that line between, you know, condemning Iran, you know, kind of on its face, kind of supporting the U.S. aims in this war, while really wanting to draw attention back, you know, wanting to de-escalate that conflict in order to go back to the war that they're really concerned about in Ukraine, and, you know, making sure that it doesn't distract not just U.S. attention, but, as we've mentioned, resources, and, you know, out of the time when the Trump administration was already showing

1:26:29fairly limited patience with that war. We just have about a minute or so left, but I just want to quickly ask you all what you, if anything, we missed this week, what you're looking towards next week for, Jaxe? Okay, I thought I told you everything already. You do? Kind of looking back, I'm curious about what the Russians are up to on their other diplomatic tracks, Anna Polina Luna invited a Russian delegation, the high profile, to Capitol Hill this week, they apparently went into Mike Johnson's office, no Mike Johnson there, but seems like the Russians are pushing on parallel diplomatic tracks, that's something to watch. Farah? You know, speaking of the U.S. being distracted, I think what I'm hearing a lot is concern about Cuba, the fact that the United States has kind of set a motion, this oil blockade, and, you know, the island is just collapsing quicker than they expected in terms of its power grid, in terms of the conditions on the island. And, you know, the United States and, you know, Marco Rubio, who's been a main player, it just hasn't had the time to really focus on it. Correct. The NCAA basketball tournament, which does have an international angle. It's like, whoa, tell me. Illinois beat Houston last night,

1:27:30they're in the elite eight, playing tomorrow for a chance and shot at the final four, they're known as the Balkan five. They have two twins from Croatia, a Serbian, a Montenegrin, and a Greek American on their team. So, as long as they don't discuss their politics and their homelands too much, when they're off the court, they should be very fun and exciting to watch. A big thank you to our panel today, Greg Meiery, National Security Correspondent and PR, Jack Datch, Defense Reporter at Politico, and Vera Bergen-Guruit, National Security Reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our acting executive producer. Alexandra Boate is our acting senior managing producer. Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer and editor of 1A on Demand, and Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional podcast support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR.

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