Israel’s Massive Attack on Iran — and Why Tomorrow’s Military Parade Is So Fraught

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily – "Israel’s Massive Attack on Iran — and Why Tomorrow’s Military Parade Is So Fraught"

Released on June 13, 2025, The Daily by The New York Times dives deep into two pivotal and interrelated events shaping global and domestic landscapes: Israel’s unprecedented strike on Iran and the United States’ contentious military parade. Hosted by Michael Barbaro, with expert insights from New York Times journalists David Sanger and Helene Cooper, this episode offers a comprehensive analysis of both international tensions and domestic political maneuvers.

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1. Israel’s Massive Attack on Iran

Timeframe: 00:29 – 05:08

The episode opens with Michael Barbaro speaking to David Sanger, the Times' White House and international affairs reporter, about a significant and unexpected military action by Israel against Iran.

Key Points:

• Scale and Targets of the Attack:
  David Sanger outlines the extent of Israel's strike, emphasizing its unprecedented scale compared to past actions. “They went after the leadership of the Iranian military and appeared to have killed their top military commander...they went after the heart and soul of the Iranian nuclear program, a facility called Natanz” (01:00).

• Historical Context of Israel-Iran Aggressions:
  Sanger compares this attack to Israel’s previous engagements with Iran, highlighting that while past actions targeted individuals and specific facilities, the bombing of major nuclear sites marks a significant escalation. “What they never did before was bomb the facilities themselves and basically risk a regional war in order to stop the program” (01:53).

• United States’ Role and Implications:
  The discussion shifts to the US’s position, noting that although the US was aware of Israel's plans and took measures such as evacuating diplomats, they did not endorse the attack. Sanger points out the delicate balance the US maintains between supporting allies and pursuing diplomatic avenues. “Their statement right after the attacks began made it clear that they'd never endorsed or approved it” (02:55).

• Potential Iranian Response:
  Addressing the aftermath, Sanger speculates on Iran’s capacity to retaliate, especially after the loss of top military officials. “The big question is, can Israel defend itself? And can the United States and other states intercept those missiles as efficiently as they did in October and in a previous missile attack?” (04:32).

Notable Quote:

“Netanyahu clearly believed that Iran was more vulnerable now than ever before because of those past attacks in October.” – David Sanger (04:33)

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2. The United States Military Parade: A Symbolic and Controversial Display

Timeframe: 05:08 – 29:30

Michael Barbaro transitions to the second major topic, exploring the complexities surrounding the upcoming US military parade. He engages Helene Cooper, the Times’ Pentagon and Defense Department correspondent, to unpack the significance and controversies of the event.

Key Points:

• Description and Logistics of the Parade:
  Cooper provides a detailed overview of the planned military parade, including the display of advanced weaponry and thousands of soldiers. “The parade's supposed to start at 6:30pm... there are going to be, what, 150 vehicles, and that includes 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks” (08:16).

• Historical Context and Departure from Tradition:
  The discussion highlights that while the US has held military parades in the past, particularly during wartime or significant anniversaries, such events are rare in modern times. Cooper contrasts this with other democracies like France, where military parades are more customary. “Jim Mattis, who was then his defense secretary, said he'd rather swallow acid in a meeting in the Pentagon” (10:50).

• Political Motivations and Controversies:
  The parade, coinciding with President Trump's 79th birthday and the army’s 250th anniversary, raises questions about the intertwining of military might with political agendas. “Pete Hegseth... made no secret of the fact that anybody who does not tow the Trump line will be out” (15:55).

• Impact of Domestic Deployments on Perception:
  Recent deployments of National Guard and Marines to counter protests in Los Angeles amplify concerns about the parade’s imagery, potentially portraying the military as a tool for political intimidation rather than a non-partisan institution. “This parade idea doesn't feel so good anymore... worry about what could happen on Saturday and just how it will look” (21:19).

• Military’s Internal Conflict:
  Cooper discusses the Pentagon’s divided stance, with traditionalists fearing the parade could politicize the military and erode its non-partisan image, while others view it as an opportunity to honor and reintroduce the army to the American public. “You want an American military that all Americans feel is part of them” (27:10).

Notable Quotes:

“Dictatorships do that. Democracies do not.” – Paul Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (10:59)

“You want a military that American people feel is a non-political institution.” – Helene Cooper (28:15)

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3. Legal and Political Developments

Timeframe: 29:30 – 32:18

In a surprising turn, Michael Barbaro reports on a federal judge’s decision to block President Trump from deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles. The ruling cites constitutional violations and orders the return of control to Governor Gavin Newsom.

Key Points:

• Judge's Ruling:
  The judge asserts that Trump’s actions to deploy federal troops violated the US Constitution, emphasizing the importance of state authority in such matters.

• Implications for the Military Parade:
  This legal intervention adds another layer of complexity to the planned military parade, highlighting the tense interplay between federal and state powers amidst domestic unrest.

Notable Quote:

“In a remarkable scene... Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed...” – Michael Barbaro (31:42)

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4. Additional News Briefs

Timeframe: 31:01 – End

The episode briefly touches on other significant news events, including a tragic passenger plane crash in India and an altercation involving Senator Alex Padilla at a Homeland Security news conference. These segments provide listeners with a wider context of global and national issues but remain peripheral to the main topics.

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Conclusion:

This episode of The Daily intricately weaves together high-stakes international relations and domestic political tensions, painting a picture of a world where military actions and displays are deeply entangled with political motivations and public perceptions. Through expert interviews and in-depth analysis, Michael Barbaro and his guests shed light on the delicate balance between national security, political agendas, and the overarching desire to maintain the military’s esteemed, non-partisan image.

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Notable Timestamps:

• 01:00 – David Sanger on the extent of Israel’s attack on Iran.
• 02:55 – Discussion on the US’s non-endorsement of Israel’s strike.
• 08:16 – Helene Cooper describes the logistics of the US military parade.
• 10:50 – Jim Mattis’ opposition to President Trump’s parade request.
• 15:55 – Changes in Pentagon leadership supporting the parade.
• 21:19 – Concerns about the parade’s imagery amidst domestic tensions.
• 27:10 – The importance of maintaining a non-political military.
• 31:42 – Senator Alex Padilla incident highlighting tensions between politicians and federal agencies.

Transcript

[Liz Ann Saunders]

This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Cathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist, along with their guests, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy and more. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Michael Barbaro]

David Sanger, it is 10:45pm on Thursday night, and just as we were finishing Friday's episode of the Daily we got this major news out of the Middle east and we wanted to bring it to our listeners at the top of this episode. You cover the White House for the Times, but really you cover the entire world, especially the Middle East. Can you describe the extent of this attack we're just getting word of by Israel on Iran and the significance of it?

[David Sanger]

Well, the extent appears to be much larger than we had really expected. They went after the leadership of the Iranian military and appeared to have killed their top military commander. They went after the nuclear scientists and perhaps most importantly, Michael, they went after the heart and soul of the Iranian nuclear program, a facility called Natanz, where for two decades Iran has made most of its nuclear material, the fuel that you could use for commercial power plants, which they maintained was their purpose or for nuclear weapons. And we just don't know at this point how much of that program has been destroyed.

[Michael Barbaro]

In terms of Israel's past aggressions toward Iran, where does this stack up?

[David Sanger]

It is by far the largest in the past. They have assassinated individual scientists and generals. They put sticky bombs on their cars as they were driving to work in Tehran traffic. They have sabotaged individual facilities. The United States and Israel together put together the world's most sophisticated cyber weapon to take those centrifuges that produce uranium and make them spin out of control. What they never did before was bomb the facilities themselves and basically risk a regional war in order to stop the program.

[Michael Barbaro]

So we're witnessing history here. You mentioned the United States. What role did the US Play, if any, in this strike? It's been my sense that because the US Is engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran, it did not want Israel to strike Iran in this moment and told Israel it didn't want that. And yet here we are.

[David Sanger]

That's exactly right. And they continued to say that even today when the president spoke at the White House, he made a mild case that he thought that if Israel acted, it could interfere with the entire diplomatic effort. Now, clearly the US Was completely aware of what would happen and when it would happen. You could tell that because they were evacuating US Diplomats protecting US Bases in the region. But their statement right after the attacks began made it clear that they'd never endorsed or approved it. And I think one of the stories we're going to have to learn a lot more about is what was the nature of the interaction between the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu when Netanyahu said, we're gonna go ahead.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Awareness does not necessarily mean consent. David, what happens next? The last time Israel attacked Iran, back in October, and you covered it closely, Iran responded with what looked on paper like tremendous force, nearly 200 ballistic missiles aimed at Israel. But ultimately, most of those missiles were shot down by Israel's defense shield. They did very little damage. And it seemed to suggest that Iran's military capabilities were actually pretty diminished in this moment. It wasn't really able to respond proportionally. Could it respond proportionally this time? What do we expect to happen over the next 24, 48 hours?

[David Sanger]

Well, I certainly think you'll see Iran respond. It may not respond all that fast given the fact that so much of their military leadership has, has been decapitated.

[Michael Barbaro]

By Israel.

[David Sanger]

By Israel. That's right. The big question is, can Israel defend itself? And can the United States and other states intercept those missiles as efficiently as they did in October and in a previous missile attack? And we just don't know the answer to that. But Netanyahu clearly believed that Iran was more vulnerable now than ever before because of those past attacks in October. And the only question is, did he calculate right about his ability to protect Israel when the inevitable retaliation begins?

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, David, thank you. I know it's late. We are going to continue to follow this story very closely. But for now, here is the rest of today's show. From New York Times, I'm Michael Balbaro. This is the Daily. Tomorrow night, for the first time in decades, the United States military will put its unrivaled might on display in a parade through downtown Washington today. Helene Cooper on the story of how President Trump overcame years of opposition from inside the military to get the parade and why its timing with federal troops now deployed in Los Angeles has become so fraud. It's Friday, June 13th. Helene, always a pleasure.

[Helene Cooper]

Good to talk to you.

[Michael Barbaro]

Michael, you cover the Pentagon for the Times. You cover the Defense Department, which means when we normally talk to you, it is about wars, airstrikes, military strategy, national security. Today we are talking to you about a parade. A parade. It's not every day you get to talk about a parade. And this is not just any parade. It is a parade that has taken on a lot of meaning to a lot of people and raised some pretty big questions about what the US Military means and what it's really for in this country. Does that seem fair to say?

[Helene Cooper]

Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I think it certainly has taken on an outsized meaning and for a couple of reasons. First of all, the US Military doesn't think that they need to do parades. They've historically not been a parade forward military. They've sort of in the past looked at parades as something that, you know, other people who are trying to prove a point do, not them. And second, this parade has become controversial because of what's happening right now in Los Angeles. You've got the president who is deployed, what, 4700 National Guard and Marines to counter protesters who were angry about Trump's immigration policies and these immigration raids. This is a huge military presence on domestic soil. And so you've got this juxtaposition on the west coast of the United States of combat fatigue, troops facing off against protesters. And on the east coast, you have tanks rolling down the streets of the Capitol. And the worry among many people in the Army. Now, that's just not a good look.

[Michael Barbaro]

And we will return to that juxtaposition and the message it may send. But just to explain precisely what we're talking about here, when we talk about a military parade that's going to be happening this weekend, describe exactly what this is going to be and what it's going to look like.

[Helene Cooper]

It's gonna be very grand. The parade's supposed to start at 6:30pm in the evening on Saturday and follow Constitution Avenue from near the Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial to the Ellipse, which is like south of the White House. There's supposed to be, what, 150 vehicles, and that includes 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks. Those are the ones that you've been seeing on the battlefields of Ukraine. There are going to be 28 armored Bradley fighting vehicles. Those are the sort of troop carriers. There are going to be four Paladin howitzers. Those are those really big howitzers. And those are artillery units that can shoot miles and miles and hit targets very far away. There are going to be 7,000 soldiers marching through the streets, and they're going to be warplanes. They're going to be helicopters. I think the number was somewhere around 50. They're going to be paratroopers landing in front of the reviewing stand on Constitution Avenue, where President Trump will be and handing him an American flag. So this is going to be a big show in Washington, D.C. but it also is going to be military troops and soldiers moving through the streets of the Capitol. And that image is one that has not been in America for decades, is one of those things that you often see in places like Russia or North Korea. And that is the image that has people concerned.

[Michael Barbaro]

Concerned, it would seem, on those two different levels you just described a couple of moments ago. And if the United States, as you just said, doesn't do military parades, why is this happening right now at this quite awkward moment to hold such a parade?

[Helene Cooper]

So this goes back to 2017, when President Trump was in Paris and watched France's Bastille Day military parade. There were tanks, there were troops, and they're marching down the Champs Elysees. There were warplanes, there were fighter jets. And he watched this with President Emmanuel Macron of France, and he loved it. So he came back and announced to the Pentagon that he wanted his own military parade. And the response he got from the Pentagon during his first term was, we don't do this, sir. Jim Mattis, who was then his defense secretary, said he'd rather swallow acid in a meeting in the Pentag.

[Michael Barbaro]

Wow.

[Helene Cooper]

Paul Selva, who was the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, told Mr. Trump that. Mr. President, he said, dictatorships do that. Democracies do not.

[Michael Barbaro]

And what do they mean when they say that? This is what dictators do, not democracies.

[Helene Cooper]

So what they mean is that dictators need to frighten their population with these show of ostentatious military might, and they want to frighten their adversaries, too, and make them think that they're very strong. I don't really get the France part, because France is a democracy, but it still has this tradition of annual military parades. But the mentality of the United States military has been more like, you know, we're the biggest and baddest in the world, and we don't have to demonstrate it to people on the streets of Washington, where they might feel threatened.

[Michael Barbaro]

Understood. So the anxiety comes from the idea that when you have a military parade, that the implications for a domestic audience become kind of intimidation, not necessarily the intended message. But that's what Mattis and the rest are talking about when they say this is what dictators do.

[Helene Cooper]

That's exactly what they're talking about. And this was part of their resistance to it.

[Michael Barbaro]

But Helene hasn't. The US Had A tradition. I'm thinking about my civics books here and the pictures of parades. A tradition of military parades.

[Helene Cooper]

It has. So they've been in the more distant past, parades for victories. And you've had parades for a couple of presidential inaugurations during particularly tense Cold War times. There was a military parade element to President Eisenhower's inauguration.

[Cathy Jones]

The president, in an open car, waved to them all. The thousands who line the parade routes.

[Michael Barbaro]

Cheering wildly from windows.

[Helene Cooper]

You had tanks and you also had even this Redstone missile.

[Cathy Jones]

Arriving at the White House grounds, Mr. And Mrs. Kennedy head for the specially constructed stand.

[Helene Cooper]

You had a military parade during President Kennedy's inauguration. There's one. After World War II, there was a victory parade. These are 13,000, but they stand for 10 million. And they march for many who will never march again. We certainly didn't do one during Vietnam. And then we had a victory parade in 1991 after the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm.

[Michael Barbaro]

Already they are saying tonight it was.

[Cathy Jones]

The biggest military celebration in the nation's.

[Michael Barbaro]

Capital since World War II.

[Helene Cooper]

The first president Bush was presiding.

[Cathy Jones]

Each person we commemorate today gave up life for principles larger than each of us.

[Helene Cooper]

And that was the last time we've had a military parade.

[Michael Barbaro]

Got it. So given that tradition, what happens to Trump's request in 2017, after Secretary of Defense Mattis and those around him say, we really don't want to do this, what happens to the idea for the rest of that first term?

[Helene Cooper]

Well, what happens to the idea for the rest of the first term is pretty interesting. Jim Mattis sort of talks around it and doesn't do it. And then eventually Mattis resigns. And Mark Esper, who became the Defense secretary after Mattis, comes up with this brilliant idea of an air parade. They had fighter jets taking off from air bases in New England and flying over the original revolutionary. You could point to the sky and see fighter jets flying to North Carolina, which is where they ended up.

[Michael Barbaro]

So basically, the military is humoring President.

[Helene Cooper]

Trump at that point and doing it in the least impactful way to sort of the citizens and to Washington, D.C. and the streets. But now we've come to President Trump's second term, and what he has now is an administration and particularly a Pentagon leadership in, in Defense Secretary Pete Hexseth, who amplify everything that Trump wants. And they are much more cheering him on than in the first term, where his Cabinet served as more of a buttress against some of his desires and wishes. So the army, which was planning already 250th birthday celebration to celebrate the 250 years since the Continental army was established on June 14, 1743. And for two years, they've been planning to do this celebration as festivals and, you know, demonstrations of athletic prowess and things on bases with music by military bands. All of a sudden in February of this year, a military parade down the streets of Washington, D.C. gets added to the event.

[Michael Barbaro]

And is it your sense, based on your reporting that the president asked for this, or perhaps those in the Department of Defense, knowing that he wanted a parade, added it for him or what?

[Helene Cooper]

My sense is that the people in the Department of Defense, knowing that he wanted it, added it for him. I don't have reporting that says Trump specifically asked for a parade in this term. What I do know is that he definitely wanted one in his last term. And what we all immediately understood when we looked at the date of the parade was that it had another significance. Significance, which is it's Donald Trump's 79th birthday.

[Michael Barbaro]

And what did that make everyone start to think?

[Helene Cooper]

Well, the army says that this parade is for their birthday. They maintain that. And in their defense, their 250th birthday is June 14th of this year. But when they turned 250 years ago, they didn't do a big military parade. There were no tanks going through the street. There were festivals and there were observances on bases, but you didn't have this sort of thing. So that explanation is what they give, that it's their 250th birthday, but it's also Donald Trump's 79th birthday. And we all know that Donald Trump really wanted a military parade.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right? So suddenly the motivations for this parade are becoming a little bit muddier at the very least. We'll be right back.

[Helene Cooper]

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[Michael Barbaro]

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[Helene Cooper]

Well, they absolutely still exist among the people below Trump's senior political level appointees. But this is a different Pentagon than we had in the first term. Trump came into office in the second term, and Pete Hegseth, his defense secretary, has gone on an orgy of firings. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He fired the first woman to lead the Navy. He's gone after dei, diversity, equity and inclusion. And he's made no secret of the fact that anybody who does not tow the Trump line will be out. And so the resistance, such as it was in the Pentagon, has definitely gone underground. You have a lot of officials who said to me that they're really worried that this could bite them later on.

[Michael Barbaro]

How so?

[Helene Cooper]

For instance, something could go wrong. I mean, parachuting into Washington, D.C. is inherently dangerous. And then there's the cost. Right now, the army is saying officially between 25 and 45 million. But privately I've heard Army officials say that this could go up to $100 million. And this is at time when President Trump is cutting all of these federal agencies and laying off all these federal employees. And you're having a big debate going on right now in Congress over this massive, big, beautiful bill and how much it could add to the American deficit. So, you know, whether it's $45 million or whether it's $100 million, that's still a lot of money at a time where there's disappearance that the country can't afford it.

[Michael Barbaro]

I have to imagine that there's a contingent within the Pentagon that don't think of this parade as just costly or just risky, but potentially as a genuinely proud moment for the armed services, where the president is going to honor what soldiers do and how they do it.

[Helene Cooper]

Absolutely, Michael. It's a parade. First of all, it's honoring the Army. I had this really interesting conversation with, with an army official who said that the last time that Americans really looked at the army was during the horrible Afghanistan evacuation and how he really thought that the army needed to kind of wash that image away. With something that was more uplifting. And this is a parade he was excited to bring his children to see. He thought that this could be a reintroduction of the army to the American people. And so there are plenty of people in the Pentagon, even those who had concerns, who sort of thought, at the end of the day, maybe this is a parade, maybe it's a good thing. But that was all before this past weekend happened. Things have changed now because, as you saw, President Trump ordered the National Guard and then followed that up with 700 Marines, active duty Marines. And all of a sudden, this parade idea doesn't feel so good anymore. My phone has been deluged in the last couple of days with army officials, military officials and Marines as well, who are all of a sudden, without me even asking, volunteering. They're sort of angst about this. There's a lot of worry about what could happen on Saturday and just how it will look.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Almost uniquely in modern American history, President Trump is using the military right now to try to stop protests, which local officials say are very small in scale and very manageable. In fact, Governor Newsom told the Daily on Thursday that federal troops were not at all necessary, and he saw it as an act of intimidation to the protesters. And therefore, you can argue that the president is using the military to say to people, you shouldn't be out in the streets challenging my policies. And if you are, then the military will be there to counter you.

[Helene Cooper]

Yeah. And over the past few days, you could even argue that it was kind of a coincidence that the deployment coincided with the military parade in D.C. a bad coincidence, bad optics for the army, but that's all it was. But then. But then Trump finds a way to.

[Michael Barbaro]

Link them, and link them how we're.

[Cathy Jones]

Going to celebrate our country for a change, you know?

[Helene Cooper]

Well, in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he was asked about the possibility of protests that are planned in Washington on Saturday, the same day as the parade.

[Cathy Jones]

By the way, for those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force. And I haven't even heard about a protest. But, you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.

[Helene Cooper]

And he said that anyone who protests must hate the United States and that they would be met with heavy force.

[David Sanger]

Wow. Wow.

[Cathy Jones]

That's a. That's a beautiful sight. And it's a beautiful sight to be with you in a place called Fort Bragg.

[Helene Cooper]

And then later on Tuesday, he goes to Fort Bragg Military Base to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army.

[Cathy Jones]

This week, we honor 250 years of valor and glory and triumph by the greatest fighting force ever to walk the face of the earth, the United States Army.

[Helene Cooper]

And he gives this speech in front of an audience of soldiers in red berets.

[Cathy Jones]

And before going further, I want to say a few words about the situation in Los Angeles, California. Have you heard of.

[Helene Cooper]

And pretty immediately it becomes about what's going on in Los Angeles under the Trump administration.

[Cathy Jones]

This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow federal agents to be attacked, and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. And that's what they are.

[Helene Cooper]

He describes a place under siege in Los Angeles.

[Cathy Jones]

The governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, they're incompetent.

[Helene Cooper]

And the crowd boos, which is, you're not supposed to do that when you're in uniform. It's against military regulations to wear political paraphernalia when you're in uniform. And you're certainly not supposed to be booing politicians when you're in uniform. But Trump encourages this. He likes this.

[Cathy Jones]

You will fight, fight, fight, and you will win, win, win. Thank you. God bless you, God bless our soul and God bless the US Army. Thank you very much.

[Michael Barbaro]

And what you seem to have in these back to back moments, you're saying is the President embracing the idea that the military is a political ally, maybe even a tool in his domestic political debates, which I think naturally brings us back to what former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said he feared originally about a military parade.

[Helene Cooper]

It really is. So now the big fear is the Saturday's parade could look like a military that is facing off against the American people that it's supposed to be protecting.

[Michael Barbaro]

There's a very real possibility of the President now presiding over this parade Saturday night showcasing the US Military's most fearsome weapons and most fearsome soldiers. And the message in that context, in the context of what's going on in la, may feel more intended or as intended for a domestic audience than as impressing or intimidating our foreign adversaries.

[Helene Cooper]

Absolutely, they're very worried about that. And especially in the former uniform world where these are retired army officials, retired Marine generals I've been on the phone with, they're really worried about this image. Also worried about a potential Tiananmen Square moment where you have a protester standing in front of a tank. That is not what America is supposed to look like. And this is, this is another one of those, you know, potential scary things that we could see on Saturday.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's a very potent image.

[Helene Cooper]

It is. But, you know, at the end of the day, it all though may depend on where you sit. I think if you're a supporter of President Trump and you see the protests in LA as thugs wrecking property and you see this as people who are being unlawful, you're perfectly fine with deploying federal troops there. And you can sit back and enjoy the image of a military that you're very proud of marching through the streets of the Capitol without feeling threatened. I think also, though, that there are people who have been intimidated by this administration, who have been attacked by Trump or who have been on the other side. You know, the federal workers who have lost their jobs or the immigrants rights people who feel like they're fighting for their families. You may feel very different. And you might see this as another example of a government that's trying to intimidate you and as a government of which you are afraid. And the biggest problem with this, according to the military leaders in President Trump's first term, is this risks bringing the military into the middle of partisan politics. You want an American military that all Americans feel is part of them. You do not want a military that is a Trump military or MAGA military or Democratic military or Biden military. You want a military that American people feel is a non political institution. And so we're going to see this weekend whether this parade makes the military look like it was co opted by partisan politics or if somehow it manages to transcend it.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, Helene, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

[Helene Cooper]

Happy to be here, Michael.

[Michael Barbaro]

Late Thursday night, a federal judge blocked President Trump from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles. In his ruling, the judge wrote that Trump's actions had violated the US Constitution and ordered that he return control of the National Guard to California's Governor Gavin Newsom. We'll be right back.

[Liz Ann Saunders]

This message comes from Capital One. Your business requires commercial banking solutions that prioritize your long term success with Capital One. Get a full suite of financial products and services tailored to meet your needs today and goals for tomorrow. Learn [e-mail] Commercial Member FDIC. This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Kathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist, along with their guest, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy and more. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Michael Barbaro]

Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday night, investigators were still trying to figure out what caused a passenger plane to crash shortly after takeoff in India, killing 242 people on board and dozens more on the ground. The plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, smashed into a medical college about a mile from the airport. Indian authorities said at least one of the plane's passengers from the 11th row survived and miraculously walked away from the wreckage and.

[Cathy Jones]

Sir.

[Michael Barbaro]

Sir.

[Cathy Jones]

Hands up.

[Michael Barbaro]

Hands up.

[David Sanger]

Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is.

[Michael Barbaro]

In a remarkable scene. Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed from a news conference held by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Kirsten. Um. When the senator tried to interrupt her on the ground. Hands behind your back.

[Helene Cooper]

Hands behind your back. All right, cool. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir.

[Michael Barbaro]

Aides to Nome said that agents had thought Padilla was a would be attacker despite the fact that he had identified himself as a senator. Padilla was later released from federal custody. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Olivia Natt and Alex Stern. It was edited by Patricia Willans, contains original music by Elisheba Etoob and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of one. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Bavaro. See you on Monday.

[Liz Ann Saunders]

We all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen. So now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn [e-mail].