← PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic - Full Show
PBS Washington Week with The Atlantic - Full Show
Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 6/19/26
00:24:20
Full Washington Week with the Atlantic broadcast from June 19, 2026.
Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:00]
A
President Trump threatened Iran with complete destruction, writing, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Earlier this week, Trump argued that Iran has a right to ballistic missiles because Saudi Arabia, its enemy and America's friend, already has them. Tonight, we'll take on a seemingly impossible assignment and try to make sense of America's foreign policy next.
- [00:27]
B
This is Washington Week with the Atlantic.
- [00:31]
A
Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week. Earlier this week, I spoke to an official, a very senior official of a Gulf Arab country. I asked him, what are we supposed to make of the fact that President Obama seems, in retrospect, to have been tougher on Iran than Donald Trump? He responded, nothing really matters. This whole deal will collapse soon anyway. It's not real. The Iranians and Americans were supposed to start negotiating a permanent deal today, but they're not. This development was easily predictable. My suspicion is that those of us who are trained to bring coherence to the news of the day are approaching our task the wrong way. We're supposed to take today's developments in a news story and refract them through the prism of the previous day's developments and those of the day before that, and so on. But with the Iran war and so many of President Trump's causes, we need a different approach. Treat every day as if it's the very beginning of the story. Joining me tonight to discuss my abstract theories and also the actual news, Jonathan Karl, the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. Karim Sajapour is a contributing writer at the Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent for the New York Times. And Nancy Youssef is a staff writer and a Pentagon correspondent at the Atlantic. Thank you all for joining me today. David, you and I covered 10 years ago, 12 years ago, the first Iran negotiation on nuclear weapons. And we understood what we were doing. It was complicated, but we understood because there was a common set of facts, common texts, et cetera. We don't have that here. So do us a favor in about a minute, make it all make sense.
- [02:13]
C
Well, the fact of the matter is we don't have anything that looks like the agreement that was signed in 2015, and that's what's supposed to be negotiated from this point forward. So when people say, is this better or worse than what President Obama put together? My answer is, we don't know yet. We won't know for 60 days. And anybody who's covered negotiations with Iran knows that 60 days could be months, could be years, could run to the end of the President's term, which might well be the Iranian strategy here. So what is this thing? It's a 60 day ceasefire that is supposed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It's supposed to end the blockade. So immediately Iran will get the biggest gift it can get, which is the resumed flow of revenue, mostly from its sales of oil to China, and a commitment from Iran on only one nuclear issue, which is to take the existing stockpile of nuclear fuel and to essentially dilute it down to a level where it couldn't be used for a nuclear weapon. But all the mechanisms around that are yet to be defined. And then for the future, rewards for Iran, the US has committed to them, lifting sanctions, unfreezing funds, but nobody knows what conditions Iran has to meet first to go do that. So it's more like a table of contents than it is like an agreement, which was the wild thing about seeing it signed at Versailles, where, you know, there was no treaty to sign. Here there's just a table of contents.
- [04:06]
A
Versailles is a whole other subject. Yeah, I mean, why not do it in Munich? While we're at it? Kareem, better food. Karim, let's talk about how Iran benefits here. Again, taking David's point under advisement, we don't really know what's going to happen, but consensus is that Iran is the winner, at least in the negotiations so far, 100%.
- [04:39]
D
Jeff, if you read that Memorandum of misunderstanding, it's a Freudian slip because the two sides have very different takeaways of that Memorandum of understanding. But of those 14 bullet points, really only one asks Iran of anything, which is some nuclear compromises that it may or may not make at the end of negotiations.
- [05:02]
A
And by the way, can I just interrupt and ask you, the nuclear compromises that they're being asked to make were compromises that they've made in the past in the original nuclear deal. Yes or no, Are they somehow related?
- [05:16]
D
Well, the two big questions are their stockpile of enriched uranium and then their commitment to suspend enrichment of uranium. And now what's interesting is that the CIA has already picked up reporting, or Axios has reported that the CIA believes that Iran doesn't actually plan to make good on those compromises. I would say the other big defeat in this document, this Memorandum of understanding, is it seems to seed the possibility that Iran actually will continue to control the Straits of Hormuz after the 60 day period. And certainly the Iranians are speaking about this in a way in which we're not going back to status quo. Ante of the Straits of Hormuz being an international waterway, this is going to be an Iranian waterway.
- [06:01]
A
Let me ask you one more question. Who is running Iran right now?
- [06:05]
D
So in theory, Mojtab Al Khamenei is the new supreme leader. The joke in Tehran is that Trump went to press delete and Ayatollah Khamenei and he instead pressed reset. You know, 86 year old Khamenei, now a 56 year old Ayatollah Khamenei. And you know, the reality is that we don't know the state of his health, but around him are powerful Revolutionary Guard commanders. I would say that virtually all of those folks are what we call hardliners, but they call themselves principalists, which is they're loyal to the principles of the 1979 revolution, which makes this task that President Trump, and now he's given this task to J.D. vance, this, that much more difficult. Because I think embedded in this proposal is a bet. And the bet is that we couldn't bomb the revolution out of Iran. Now we're going to try to bribe the revolution out of Iran with financial inducements. And that hasn't worked since 1979. For that reason, I say this is, you know, geopolitical Hail Mary for JD Vance trying to persuade Shiite revolutionaries to be a normal country.
- [07:14]
C
And by the way, the same bet that Obama made.
- [07:17]
A
Right? Right. Nancy, is this a military defeat for the US Or a political defeat, assuming that it goes in the direction we're talking about.
- [07:26]
E
So let's remember what the military was assigned to do. They were asked to damage and degrade Iran's ballistic missile capability, its nuclear capability and its leadership and its ability to govern. The military conducted 13,000 strikes and it did degrade ballistic missiles and drones. Not enough that Iran couldn't continue to pose a threat to continue to use drones and missiles to hold the Strait of Hormuz. And those strikes came at great cost in that 13 US troops were killed, one of the deadliest civilian casualty incidents ever, and the death of Minab of at least 168 children. And those tactical wins didn't translate into strategic success for the United States. Now that's not on the military to answer strategic aims. But those strikes by themselves didn't allow the United States to achieve its initial aims of the war, defeating proxies, leading to the fall of the regime and the end of its nuclear and ballistic missile capability. I'd also add that I think it really changed how Gulf nations look at their partnership with the United States. Up until this conflict, Gulf nations had bases in their countries in the hopes that that presence would serve as sort of a security umbrella for them. And what they discovered instead is that those bases and that relationship invited strikes from Iran onto their countries. And so I think you're going to start to see them try to divers security setup as a consequence of this war.
- [08:52]
A
Just stay on this point about the U.S. military for one minute. You're an expert on U.S. military capabilities. The U.S. military could have militarily defeated the Iranians had the commander in chief ordered the complete defeat of Iran. Is that fair thing to say?
- [09:09]
E
I mean, there were plans that went, that had several carriers in the region, for example, had troop movements going in. There were plans for it. The question becomes at what cost? And even President Trump himself said he wasn't sure that the United States had the stomach to take on the costs that would be associated with doing it. The military can do it. I think what they live in a reality in which the politics of it doesn't allow them to do those missions as maybe they would want to do them.
- [09:37]
A
Right. John, I want you to listen to President Trump speaking in 2018. This is when he announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Iran deal negotiated by President Obama.
- [09:51]
B
As we exit the Iran deal, we will be working with our allies to find a real comprehensive and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear threat. This will include efforts to eliminate the threat of Iran's ballistic missile program.
- [10:12]
A
Now, I want you to just listen to what the President said that this past week on the same subject.
- [10:19]
B
And I have guys, I like some of these guys, but I don't think this, I don't think they're smart, sir, you shouldn't let them have any missile. I said, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles but they can't have them? Yes, sir. Can't. Doesn't work that way. You know, it doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are or they hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.
- [10:48]
A
I want you to do two things here. Yeah. One, explain this about face on the question of efficacy and power of ballistic missiles. Give us your general impressions of what's going on with him intellectually, politically, in his capabilities.
- [11:07]
F
Well, look, I mean, what happened here is, I mean, he was pretty transparent about it. He said we had a choice, make a deal with Iran or have a global recession. Iran had him over a barrel, as the Wall Street Journal put it, over a barrel of oil they were able to choke off the, you know, a critical point for the global economy and continue to do it indefinitely. He had the choice of try to, you know, continue militarily or strike a deal, any deal. And he struck a deal that was, that looked a heck of a lot like total capitulation to the Iranians. What's happening with him? I mean, look, first of all, I think it was remarkable to hear the way U.S. officials talked about this deal as it came together, basically saying, don't look at the words. The words don't really matter. I mean, there's an actual quote from a senior U.S. official to CNN. People shouldn't read too much into the language of the MoU. It's the understandings we have with them which is so much more important. The understandings. I mean, the language of the.
- [12:14]
A
What does that even mean?
- [12:15]
F
Well, the language of the Emmy, for instance, by the way, this is more than a table of contents, I would argue, because the benefits to Iran are front loaded. I mean, they get immediate access to the world oil markets and the banking system to carry out those transactions. This is something that they have not had since the Obama deal was in effect for nearly a decade. They have not had access to the global oil markets and the banking system and the insurance system and all of that. They can only sell on the black market at a deep discount. This is a credible economic boom. And then as Karim mentioned, they have the possibility in another 58 days or so to work out a system for tolling in the Strait of Hormuz, something they never had. So they have revenue streams that they have not had for a long time as a result of this agreement. Look, Iran didn't win the military conflict. They got set back significantly. Their missile program got set back significantly. Not as much as Trump had claimed, but significantly. The nuclear program clearly set back, but they won the peace negotiation.
- [13:21]
A
Just so we're clear, Nancy, talk about the ballistic missile program and why it is a source of anxiety for the West.
- [13:31]
E
So very simply, the ballistic program allows Iran to pose a threat to every US ally in the region from Israel through the Gulf partners. And once they have that capability, they can launch at infrastructure in the Gulf. They can threaten the security umbrella on which the Gulf operates on, they can threaten Israel, and they can use those to close the Strait of Hormuz. The way they closed it was not by having a superior military force. It was the threat of them conducting attacks that stopped ships from going through. So it really is a cornerstone of their security and it is one of the most durable capabilities that they retain. They can use it in a variety of ways that in conjunction with drones, allows them to swarm air defense capabilities such that the US Is having to spend a tremendous amount for every air defense missile in response to $30,000 drones and ballistic missiles. And so those two capabilities really are the foundation of their defense and their attack on the strait.
- [14:31]
A
And David, of course you need a ballistic missile to deliver a nuclear weapon effectively.
- [14:36]
C
You do. I mean, you can deliver a nuclear weapon on an ox cart, but if you're going to do it with a, with distance, you, you're going to need a missile. So there are a few things going on here. You may remember that there was a moment when Secretary of State Marco Rubio got tired of everybody saying, you've forgotten about your original objectives. And he said, go write some down. And he made the most comprehensive argument about why the missile program is designed to protect the nuclear infrastructure, that you can't deal with one without dealing with the other. Which may be why he looks so uncomfortable in the background in that clip.
- [15:14]
A
And this was the flaw in a lot of critics minds of the Obama deal, that it disaggregated the delivery system from the, from the weapon itself.
- [15:22]
C
That's right. And there were some very legitimate complaints about the Obama agreement. One of them to remind was it didn't cover missiles at all. There was a UN resolution, but it was never enforced. Particularly the second was it ran out there was a time limit on it. Well, when you read at least the outline of the accord here and what they're going to negotiate about, missiles aren't even mentioned in this 14 paragraph document. And there is discussion of a time limit during which time Iran would presumably in the next agreement suspend their enrichment of uranium, but then presumably could resume. And so the problem is that the president himself in that clip you played from 2018 set up the complaints he had about the Obama era deal and he now appears to be replicating many.
- [16:21]
E
Right.
- [16:21]
A
Karim, something John said really struck me. You're describing a situation where the administration is planning for a Vibes based negotiation. Don't listen to the words and read the language. Just there's a lot of stuff that's unspoken. Do the Iranians do vibes based negotiating?
- [16:43]
D
It hasn't worked since 1979. But I do think John is absolutely right. I mean, what I'm reminded of is Trump's attempts to do a grand deal with Kim Jong Un in his first term. If you remember the way he spoke about that is you have beautiful coastline in North Korea. You know, we can open you up. It was essentially denuclearization in exchange for prosperity. And the thing about revolutionaries is that what's most important for them is staying in power. And so for them, the prosperity of their citizens, global integration is never the priority. And so from the vantage point of our negotiators, they're guys with real estate and finance backgrounds. And this would seem a no brainer. If you offer people hundreds of billions of dollars of relief versus continued isolation, seems like a no brainer. But for the revolutionaries ruling Iran, they fear that if you open up that country to the forces of international capitalism and civil society, that's going to hasten their collapse, not entrench them.
- [17:45]
A
What does all of this mean for the dissident movement in Iran, which obviously before the current war had been active but then brutally suppressed? Thousands upon thousands of people killed by the regime. What does it mean for them?
- [18:01]
D
For the moment, it's dead. You know, there's enormous hopelessness among Iranian opponents of the regime. President Trump said on nine occasions, help is on the way. Most recently I heard him say, I don't care about regime change. And he's actually referred to regime change that has already taken place in Iran, saying that Iran's new leaders are moderate. Mojzeba Khamenei is a respected figure. So this is, I think, one of the modern tragedies that, you know, America used to be the beacon on the Hill for freedom fighters around the world. And President Trump is, you know, in the words of our colleague Ann Appelbaum, unilaterally disarmed the United States of our soft power and support for democracy.
- [18:43]
A
Right. John, all of this raises this big question. Is the world more dangerous now than it was before February 28th, when this war started? I want you all to answer that question.
- [18:58]
F
Well, I mean, I think you can make an argument that Iran has been significantly degraded as a military power. So in the.
- [19:04]
A
But can it rebuild?
- [19:06]
F
And I mean, it's gonna have the means, the financial means to rebuild.
- [19:10]
A
China and Russia interested in helping.
- [19:12]
F
I mean, it's going to have its own. It's going to have new revenue streams. Whether or not, I mean, I don't know the answer to those questions, but it will have the means to rebuild. But for right now, for the short term, maybe the midterm, you can argue that Iran is a diminished power and has less of an ability to inflict harm on its neighbors. But these larger questions about whether or not they can rebuild, how quickly they can rebuild their missile capabilities, their drone capabilities, which haven't really been degraded very much. And ultimately a nuclear program to look at the agreement and refer to the. It refers to the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear needs. It's acknowledging, it seems to me, that they will at some point have a right to continue to enrich uranium. Something that had been, you know, a red line for Trump at the beginning of this.
- [20:03]
A
Nancy, expand this out a little bit. If you're North Korea, which has appetites mainly for South Korea, if you're China that has an appetite for Taiwan, how are you looking at the behavior of the United States, the United States president over the past three months, and how are you, how are you interpreting that, and what are you learning?
- [20:24]
E
So for China watching in terms of Taiwan, I think they're seeing the United States that's been depleted in terms of its air munition capability. Its navy has really taken the brunt of the war fighting by the United States. We've had carriers and destroyers in the region. And so I think they're watching that and might assess that the United States is weaker in terms of responding to threats to Taiwan. I think broadly, the international community is looking at what happened not only in Iran, but in Ukraine, and seeing that this idea of sort of large powers coming in and definitively defeating other weaker nations is not necessarily the case anymore, that technology has become such an equalizer on the battlefield. And so I think you're going to see militaries across the world, including the United States, look at their technological capabilities, look at their drone capabilities, look at AI, and figure out what advances they need to make given this rapid moving and changing battlefield dynamic.
- [21:16]
A
David, you can answer that question if you want, but I want to add something to the mix. I want to talk about Trump's relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu. As Henry Kissinger once said, as you know, it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal. Did Trump just play Netanyahu for soccer here?
- [21:37]
C
I think that President Trump came to realize that Netanyahu may have been playing him at the beginning and reacted to this. Listen, Israel and the United States went into this war together, right? Right. They attacked Iran simultaneously. They discussed how much they had a common interest in it. They left the war deeply separated, with the president having had shouting matches with Netanyahu and so forth. Why? Because their interests diverged. Netanyahu still wanted to go to defang Iran and didn't think that they had accomplished that. President Trump said something really revealing. I thought when he was in Europe twice, he mentioned a predecessor of his in the Oval Office who most American presidents don't discuss, Herbert Hoover. And he said, I don't want to become that Herbert Hoover guy. So basically what he was saying was we were headed to a position of energy disruption and, and of recession and maybe depression, he said, and he had to pull the plug on that. Which tells you he was endorsing the Iranian strategy.
- [22:49]
A
But why didn't he think of that beforehand?
- [22:51]
C
Really good question. And when historians look back at this, at this misbegotten adventure, I think the question they will be asking is what was it about the Trump structure here that led them to anticipate so few of the counter moves that Iran made?
- [23:14]
F
I think if I could just jump. I think the answer here is that Trump had a belief in his own invincibility. It was driven in part by the incredible success and relative ease of the Venezuela operation to get rid of Maduro. It was driven by the success of the bombing last summer of the nuclear sites and even of the bombing of the boats in the Caribbean. He thought he can do anything right.
- [23:36]
A
Kareem, last 25 seconds to you. World more dangerous.
- [23:41]
D
I think it is more dangerous because the lesson that Iran learned in the last four months is that you gain concessions from the United States by punching back at them hard, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, by attacking your neighbors. And unfortunately, I don't think this MOU has resolved the nuclear issue. I expect that Iran is actually going to try to acquire nuclear weapons.
- [24:04]
A
Well, on that happy note, we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank our guests for joining me. And I want to thank you at home for watching us. You could read Kareem and Nancy on IRAN by visiting theatlantic.com I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.