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- [00:00]
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- [00:23]
Miles Parks
Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
- [00:27]
Frank Ordonez
I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House.
- [00:29]
Greg Myhre
And I'm Greg Myy. I cover national security.
- [00:32]
Miles Parks
And today on the pod, trying to decipher if the United States is about to go to war with Iran. The two countries have been meeting in Switzerland to hammer out some kind of deal related to Iran's nuclear program. Franco, let's just start with the basics here. What does the United States want from a deal?
- [00:48]
Frank Ordonez
Well, I mean, Trump says they want a lot of stuff. I mean, they've talked about no nuclear missiles. They've talked about stopping the ballistic program. They've talked about no proxy militant groups or support for those proxy militant groups. Some people think regime change, but what they haven't been clear about is what they would accept in any kind of specific deal. And Trump really has not explained his objectives to the American people. He has not asked for any kind of special authorization from Congress. And he really had a big chance to do that at the State of the Union. But he kind of just kind of meshed up all these points together without laying out any kind of specific about why this may be necessary at this moment in time.
- [01:35]
Miles Parks
Okay. And then looking at Iran, Greg, what are they hoping to get out of these talks?
- [01:39]
Greg Myhre
So the Iranians are insisting, as they always have, that they can keep at least part of their nuclear program. They say they have the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. They also know they're probably going to have to offer some concessions. President Trump tore up the previous nuclear agreement in 2018. So for him to accept a new one, it would have to presumably include. Include some additional elements that weren't there in the last one. But Iran says it's not going to completely dismantle its nuclear program, as the US Appears to be demanding. And also, Iran wants some of the sanctions lifted. It faces all of these sanctions that the US and the international community has placed on Iran over the decades. In fact, more were just added by the US this week. And that could also put Trump in a tricky position. In the State of the Union address, he said Iran killed 30, 32,000 protesters last month. So now is Trump prepared to offer a reward, sanctions relief, just a month after this widespread killing of protesters?
- [02:49]
Miles Parks
I guess I'm trying to figure out where this is headed if the two sides are not able to come to an agreement. There has been a pretty massive buildup of U.S. military power in the Middle East. Do you have any thoughts on that, Greg Miles?
- [03:01]
Greg Myhre
I would say sort of three basic options. One is they keep on talking. They've had three rounds of talks. They've talked about having additional talks next week. So no reason they can't keep talking. Previous negotiations went on for months and months, years earlier. Second, the US could strike, but in a limited kind of way, strike for a couple of days. Last June, we saw Israel and the US team up for 12 days of bombing of Iran and Iran responded. But then Trump just declared a ceasefire and that was the end of that round. So we could again see a limited round or Trump could go big and order a massive, open ended, sustained military campaign, perhaps with the goal of trying to oust the Iranian regime. But that would be a huge operation, no guarantee of success. So those are three basic options. Obviously, there could be lots of other possibilities as well.
- [03:55]
Miles Parks
Yeah. And I will note that Vice President J.D. vance said in an interview with the Washington Post that the sort of option three there, the more full scale military intervention, it doesn't seem like there is appetite for that from the administration at this point. Is that fair to say? Franco?
- [04:09]
Frank Ordonez
Yeah, I mean, I think that is fair to say for sure. I mean, he is the Vice President, United States. I was a bit surprised that he would come out and say that publicly considering Trump. His MO is to always say that all options are on the table. And the rhetoric that he uses, talking to the public is often one of the biggest parts of the strategy for his team and trying to put pressure on the Iranian regime and that clearly he is trying to put as much pressure as possible on the Iranian regime. So I was surprised about that. But look, this is Trump. I mean, he campaigned this time and in 2016 on being a president of peace, of not taking the United States into war, of not wanting to start another never ending war in his term. So it seems very much in Trump's stead to want to find some type of option where he could go in and out, as Greg is talking about. Maybe it'd be a day, maybe it'd be a couple days. But I think President Trump wants something very clearly where he can go in, get out and declare victory and not have any type of situation remotely similar to Iraq or Afghanistan. But when you get into military conflicts, there's just so much uncertainty.
- [05:28]
Miles Parks
Greg, I want to ask about Israel, which is not a country we've mentioned yet. They obviously have a lot of interests at play here. Can you explain, I guess, what they're hoping comes out of these talks and how much they're playing into Trump's thinking?
- [05:39]
Greg Myhre
I think it's fairly significant. The Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu has talked for years, decades even, about ending Iran's nuclear program and its missile program. So he's always been a hardliner on this. There's no doubt that he's pushing for tough, tough action. And also they don't believe a nuclear agreement with Iran is worth the paper that it's written on. We could certainly have a big discussion about that, but they certainly prefer the more aggressive option. Having had Trump already strike Iran last year and certainly having it on the table at the moment, Netanyahu sees this as a real opportunity to press for a big military strike against Iran. So I would expect Israel to be pushing and again, not only going for the nuclear program, but for the missile program. Iran does have a lot of missiles with conventional warheads. They fired many of those at Israel last June when the 12 days of fighting were going on. So that's an immediate threat to Israel that they want to address as well. The Trump administration has raised the missile issue, but it seems the talks have so far been limited to the nuclear program. Going after the missile program would be a bigger operation. There are multiple nuclear sites, but the missiles can be in many different places. The Iranians move them around, they make missiles in one place, they prepare them for launch in another, they have mobile launchers would greatly expand the operation. If you make an effort to deal a major, significant long term blow to Iran's missile program.
- [07:20]
Frank Ordonez
I did find it interesting, though, that Trump has been, and the administration has been talking more about the missile program from Trump's remarks in the State of the Union, talking about how Iran is closer than ever to getting missiles that potentially reach the United States, which seems a little bit of an exaggeration. You would know more than I would, Greg. But also Marco Rubio this week talking about how the talks and kind of expressing some frustration with the lack of progress in the talks, but expressing a lot of frustration about that they're not even talking about the missile program and saying publicly that the fact that Iran refuses to talk about ballistic missiles being a big, big problem.
- [08:05]
Greg Myhre
Yeah. And from Iran's perspective, it's the one defensive measure they really have. This is probably not going to be a ground war. We wouldn't expect to see ground troops that the US or anybody else would send in ground troops. Iran's navy is not much to speak of. The one way Iran can defend itself and strike out against Israel or US Ships in the region is with ballistic missiles. So Iran says there's no way we're going to even talk about this. And we're certainly not going to give up our missiles. We would, in fact, be surrendering at the negotiating table. So Iran just says that's not going to be discussed. As far as we know, it hasn't been. The talks have been about the nuclear issues. The US Wants to expand into missile discussions, as would Israel. But so far that doesn't seem to be on the table.
- [08:53]
Miles Parks
Okay, well, we're having this conversation about the possibility, the very real possibility of military intervention in Iran. I guess I'm just curious how much of a threat Iran actually poses to the United States as we sit here today.
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Greg Myhre
Yeah. So if we're talking today, the Iranians do not have a nuclear weapon, even if they did have a missile or a delivery system that could launch it and strike the United States. So at the moment, there's not a direct threat to the continental states. But if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon with the missile systems that it does have, that would threaten not only Israel, but other countries in the region, perhaps the edges of Europe, and it would create all sorts of terrible dynamics for the region. Suddenly, Iran's another big rival in the region. Saudi Arabia would probably want a nuclear weapon. Turkey, which borders Iran, it's a member of NATO, but it might want nuclear weapons. You could easily see a nuclear arms race in the Middle east if Iran were to get a weapon like that. And Iran has been involved in so many of the other conflicts in the regions through its proxies. So it's just seen as something that would greatly escalate. So there is the question of is it a direct threat to the US but also how much would it destabilize a region where the US has been fighting wars for the last 30 plus years.
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Frank Ordonez
Yeah, I also just to add, like from the political sense, I mean, this is a messaging challenge for this administration. I mean, President Trump in the summer said that they obliterated the nuclear program over the summer. If it's obliterated, then it's pretty far off from threatening the United States in any time in the near future. And even if it's partially. There was only partially obliterated, et cetera, for Trump to now or to if he goes forward and strikes another nuclear site, I think there's going to be a question about credibility. If he goes after the nuclear program again and says kind of similar language, I think he is under pressure to kind of expand this to give other reasoning, whether going after a strike on leadership or some type of ballistic site or at least be able to message that, because I do think some of the American people are going to be questioning, hey, wait a minute, said this was obliterated. Now you're bombing another nuclear site. So I do think he faces some, you know, some messaging challenges there.
- [11:27]
Miles Parks
I do feel like, generally speaking, when the United States is on the precipice of military action, like the country seems to be right now, presidents do communicate about that, either with the American people or with Congress or both. How has President Trump been doing that? I guess as this whole Iran situation has developed over the last couple weeks.
- [11:47]
Frank Ordonez
I mean, he has given like, you know, the State of the Union. He kind of meshed in these different ideas and kind of meshed together the ballistics, meshed together the nuclear, meshed together the proxies. He didn't talk about regime change, but that's always kind of a desire that Republican presidents and leaders have wanted for a long time. But he has not made a clear case on why the United States should do this right now. What is the threat that he is facing? That is a big concern for a lot of people, including from his own party. Again, politically, I mean, midterms are coming up. This is a very sensitive time for Republicans. They're down in the polls. Trump is very much down in the polls. And a lot of the criticism is that the president of the United States is focusing too much attention on foreign policy issues and not domestic issues. He's focusing too much on the issues he promised his supporters that he would be getting the United States out of. So this. This lack of messaging to the American people could really come back to bite him. Because when I talk to Republican strategists, they tell me if he would just do that, at least people would kind of have an understanding of why he is doing this. And perhaps that would maybe insulate Republican candidates in the midterms from taking all of the blame if it goes wrong. Because then they could say, well, at least we understood why he did that. I disagreed. But we understand this way, not explaining. I think it just opens it up for even more anger and more people to be disappointed and just confused about the US Priorities in this area.
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Greg Myhre
And beyond the domestic front, there's the international front. President Trump hasn't gone to the United nations to make the case. There to seek some sort of UN approval. He has not built a coalition beyond working closely with Israel. But we've seen several US allies, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan say we don't really want to be a part of this in terms of using our bases or flying over our airspace. And that can be significant. In some of the recent clashes between Israel and Iran, Jordan, for example, shot down drones or missiles that were flying over its airspace. Now it wouldn't come out and say we're doing this to protect Israel. They were saying we don't want those objects flying over our airspace. So they were shooting the down as a sort of their own self defense. That's the kind of assistance you can get or may need from allies in the region. And the Trump administration just hasn't reached out and is getting a real hands off approach from US Allies in the region and beyond.
- [14:42]
Miles Parks
All right, we can take a quick break and more on all this in just a moment.
- [14:47]
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- [16:09]
Miles Parks
and we're back. And this month also marks four years since Russia began its full scale invasion of Ukraine. Greg, can you get us up to speed on that conflict there? And what is the current state of the war?
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Greg Myhre
Yeah, Myles, so as we sit here and look at it long distance, not very much is changing. In fact, it's a stalemate in many ways. The front line is not moving. Hasn't been moving really for the past couple years, small Russian advances, but there's another way to look at. And again, the four year mark gives us an opportunity to do that. Both sides are waging this very intense war and it seems that neither will be able to keep this up indefinitely. Ukraine certainly faces this great strain in terms of manpower. Does it have enough people to keep on the front line to keep fighting at this level? The civilians in Ukraine are suffering the roughest winter yet because Russia is hitting with missiles and drones, knocking out electrical power that's getting harder and harder to restore. Imagine yourself living on the 10th or 15th floor of an apartment building in Kyiv or another city and not having an elevator, not having heat in these sub freezing temperatures. Russia, on the other hand, it continues to lose enormous numbers of soldiers with the way they fight on the ground. The estimates are all around 1,000 a day dead or wounded, 30,000amonth that they're having to replace. And they're just not getting well trained, well skilled, well supplied troops. So it's still a very, very heavy, intense war, but very little movement with, with neither side gaining much territory.
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Miles Parks
Well, President Trump said earlier this year that he wanted an end to this conflict by this summer. Franco, where does the US Involvement stand right now in this war and moving towards that aim?
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Frank Ordonez
Yeah, I mean, I think there's growing pessimism inside the White House and across the administration about reaching a resolution anytime soon. That said, the US Is very much involved. I mean, clearly Trump's invested. He has his two most trusted people working on this issue. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son in law Jared Kushner, who were obviously at front and center for negotiations in Gaza. And we were just talking about Iran. He hasn't farmed it off to someone in a lesser role. So I think this is definitely something he still wants to resolve. He still wants to fulfill his campaign promise, though very, very late. That said, the details are very. Just gotta wonder how long this administration is willing to kind of dedicate to this issue. Clearly, Russia is not doing what Trump wants to do. And Trump has been trying to put some pressure on Russia, put more pressure on Ukraine, and kind of going back and forth in kind of this wish washy way. But as Greg was kind of pointing out, it's just kind of things don't seem to be moving forward, not only on the ground in the war, but also in kind of like the diplomatic point, or at least it doesn't seem like you're not seeing much progress.
- [19:21]
Greg Myhre
So I've been trying to think about this for a long Time of how do you boil this down to the basic contradictions? And the best I can do is President Trump wants a deal to end the war, stop the fighting. He's expressed very little interest in the details of what it might look like or who would have to give up what. He wants a deal, wants the fighting to stop. That's his priority. Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, seems to want to drag this war out. Russia is gaining a little territory, not much, and it's a very high cost. But he seems to want to stretch this out, believing he will outlast Ukraine, the U.S. europe, and that time is his ally and on his side. So there's one of the main contradictions. Trump wanting to end it, Putin wanting to drag it out for Ukraine. The question is, how does this war end? Do we have to give up the 20% of our territory that the Russians now hold? Can we make maybe freeze that front line and negotiate over time, can we withstand this ongoing Russian onslaught? Will our country be viable? Will we still be getting support from Europe, which has replaced the US as the main donor of both military and financial assistance? So it's the how this war ends for Ukraine. So there are very different interests here. And to me, that's why we're not seeing any progress on these peace talks.
- [20:42]
Miles Parks
Well, you mentioned Europe kind of replacing the United States as the source of, of main driver behind Ukraine's military efforts. Is that specifically because President Trump has sort of taken a more hands off approach than President Biden did in terms of supporting Ukraine?
- [20:56]
Greg Myhre
Yes, absolutely. The US Was the biggest donor during the Biden administration. President Trump announced during his campaign and when he came into office, we're going to cut off new military assistance to Ukraine. That has happened. There's maybe a little bit still trickling through the pipeline based on legislation passed during the Biden administration. But the policy now is the US Will sell weapons to European members of NATO who can then give it to Ukraine. That's happening. Hard to tell the exact scale of that. The Europeans have stepped up. They've replaced a lot of the assistance that the US Was providing in strictly dollar terms. And that can be both. I'm talking financial assistance or military assistance. But the Europeans can't replace everything simply because some weapons like missile air in the Patriot air defense system simply come from the US and nowhere else. So they can't, in terms of the exact item, replace it. Can they do this for the long term or just the short term? We don't know yet.
- [22:02]
Frank Ordonez
I mean, I would say there is kind of Like a both. And in this case, I mean, absolutely, Trump is trying to push some of the, you know, leadership, the money, the resources over to Europe. We hear it all the time, Trump saying that Europe is closer. The US has an ocean between this conflict. Europe needs to do more. At the same time, when I talk to international observers, it's hard to see any type of negotiation making any type of progress without Trump. I mean, there was no discussions with Putin during the Biden years. Those opened up during the Trump years. Now, obviously, you can debate about how effective they have been, if at all. But the conversations are going. There are conversations happening, and they're not with the European leaders, with Trump and Trump's people. So I do think Europe still needs Trump and still needs the US for this aspect. And it is a hard balance that not only Trump is trying to have, but also Europe. I mean, the Trump administration, when I talk to White House officials, they want to pull back, but they also realize that this is not going to end unless the United States stays involved, or at least not a negotiated end in any type of way in the near future.
- [23:17]
Greg Myhre
And we could add this to our list of contradictions. Europe is now the main supporter of Ukraine in the war, but it's the US that's still negotiating with Russia. And the Europeans don't want to be left out. They're not really happy about being left out, even as they're stepping up in terms of providing assistance to Ukraine.
- [23:36]
Miles Parks
I mean, where do things go from here in terms of timeline? Are we any closer? Is a resolution in sight at all, or is there even the glimmer of down the road of a resolution here, or does it feel like this is just indefinite stalemate moving forward?
- [23:51]
Greg Myhre
They're talking at the same table, the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Americans. So, you know, that's progress of a sort. The Ukrainians have certainly hinted that they'll or are flat out said they'll do certain things, like, they're certainly willing to consider freezing the front line of the conflict. And, boy, that certainly seems to make some sense in a conflict where that front line isn't moving. A lot of people are getting killed, but there's not really much moving movement. Why not freeze it in place and then hold the negotiations? Russia has really resisted that. You could see some outlines developing, but in terms of concrete progress, no, you're not really seeing that. And again, the Russians just seem to feel time is our ally, time is on our side. We don't want to make any deals right now.
- [24:39]
Frank Ordonez
Yeah, I would take Greg's assessment right there as very optimistic. We've heard the president of the United States say so many times, like great progress. We're about turning the corner so many times where things just fall apart or don't go anywhere. And like even the president is saying, hey, we've reached a deal or we've reached an agreement with Ukraine, we reached an agreement with Russia. It is always though us reaching an agreement with Ukraine, us reaching an agreement with Russia or some type of outlines. What hasn't happened is no type of like, hey, Ukraine and Russia have come to some type of meeting of the minds. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, but they've never gotten to that state. And until there's some more kind of hard either in black and white or something, it just seems to be getting more and more pessimistic that there is going to be some kind of progress. Yes, they are at the same table and yes, that is something. But when you ask is this real progress? It's hard not to roll your eyes.
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Miles Parks
No, you're absolutely one more break and then it's time for Can't Let It Go.
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- [26:16]
Miles Parks
Year.
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- [27:13]
Miles Parks
And we're back. And it is time now for Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things that we just cannot stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Greg, why don't you start us off?
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Greg Myhre
Yeah. Mine is the US Military and other government agencies using lasers against drones or other objects. We've seen this twice in the last two weeks. The latest one, the US Military used a laser to shoot down what it thought was a threatening drone near the border in Texas between the US And Mexico. It turned out this drone belonged to Customs and Border Protection, forced shutting down of a little airspace southeast of El Paso. The other event took place about two weeks ago, right near El Paso. In that time, it was Customs and Border Protection using a weapon it had been given by the Pentagon. We should note a lot of drones are coming across the border in those areas. Mexican drug cartels, for example, will even use drones to send packages of drugs across the border. So welcome to the future. But this is very unnerving for commercial aviation. And these lasers can cause real damage.
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Miles Parks
I wanna rewind for just a second. Cause I actually. Using lasers, I thought that was, like, a thing that only happened in James Bond movies.
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- [28:30]
Miles Parks
Am I missing something here? Is that when we talk about that, are we talking about, like, Moonraker and James Bond, where they're, like, shooting? I just don't. What is using a laser to shoot down a tunnel?
- [28:38]
Frank Ordonez
No, it's more like Star Trek.
- [28:39]
Miles Parks
Okay.
- [28:40]
Greg Myhre
Yeah. No, these are weapons, Miles. And they can be used certainly against small drones, and they can take them out of the sky. With the proliferation of drones, it raises the problem. How do you stop a drone swarm coming. Coming at you? And, you know, it's hard to shoot each one out of the sky or just. It's very problematic. So one of the countermeasures that's been developed is using lasers to strike them and shoot them down. Now, against a small drone, these seem to work pretty well. What kind of damage would this inflict on a big aircraft or a plane? Hard to say. But it could certainly blind the pilot. It could cause some damage to a plane. So this is going to be an issue. And the fact that the US Government, Pentagon, Customs and Border Protection, the faa, can't seem to get on the same page in terms of who's using it, what are they shooting at? What is the risk?
- [29:35]
Frank Ordonez
Craig, I'm already worried enough about AI. Now you got, like, mass drones coming at us?
- [29:40]
Greg Myhre
Yeah, you should worry, Franco, worry.
- [29:44]
Miles Parks
All right, I'll go next. The thing I cannot let go of, and I feel like everyone's been talking about it, but it literally, I feel like I was washing dishes last night, and I was thinking about. I love it. I love when it's. I can't let it go. That I truly can remember the three times this week I thought I about it. It's Cash Patel at the. At the men's Olympics game. You know, I think many listeners will probably already know what I'm talking about, but basically, after the men's hockey team won the gold, FBI Director Cash Patel was seen in the locker room. It looks very similar to me when I won the rec league basketball championship a few years ago. I mean, he's just like, let's effing go. And he's, like, throwing the beer around and he's drinking it. And I think. I feel like the reason. There's a lot of reasons about this that are bigger picture questions that are worth talking about that a lot of people are talking about in terms of, like, whether government money was used to fund this trip and things of that nature. We're not gonna go down that rabbit hole right now. What I was curious about is just specifically about how voters perceive this, because I do think President Trump won the popular vote, and I think a big part of his message leading to the 2024 election was that people really want to feel like regular people are in these positions of power. I am not sure that FBI director is the job that you want. Just kind of like your best buddy from college in that job, doing the stuff he did in college.
- [31:05]
Greg Myhre
Yeah. Chris Wray, Robert Mueller.
- [31:07]
Miles Parks
Exactly.
- [31:08]
Greg Myhre
I don't see them in the locker room.
- [31:10]
Miles Parks
I was imagining. That's what I was thinking about last night, imagining Christopher Wray bombing beers. And I just couldn't. Not. I couldn't get there. Anyway, Franco, what can't you let go of?
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Frank Ordonez
Well, I am, you know, fascinated with some of the stuff that's going on in Latin America. Have you guys seen this group of teens in Argentina who are hanging out, kind of wearing dog masks and other, you know, animal masks? There's this kind of viral video of them hanging out in parks, having meetups, going to parks, climbing trees, jumping over each other. It is this real thing. Like, it's kind of part identification of being an animal, part escapism. I'm just fascinated by this.
- [31:54]
Miles Parks
No, I haven't seen this. So these are groups of teens wearing animal masks, and they're, like, videotaping each other doing animal stuff. Am I understanding this correctly?
- [32:05]
Frank Ordonez
Yeah, they're these young folks who are looking kind of a little bit of an escape, going to the park, and they're having these meetups and they take dog names when asked about their age. They do it in dog years or age animal years. And it's fascinating because they're they're really encompassing this area. But it's also kind of cute. AP actually interviewed one of the teens who goes by Aguara, and she said, I wake up like a normal person and I live my life like a normal person, but sometimes I simply have moments when I like being a dog.
- [32:39]
Miles Parks
Huh. Well, that is all for today. Our executive producers, Muthoni Muturi, our producer. Our producers are Casey Morell and Bria Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Christian Depp Calimer. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
- [32:52]
Frank Ordonez
I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House.
- [32:54]
Greg Myhre
I'm Greg Myhre. I cover national security.
- [32:56]
Miles Parks
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.
- [33:06]
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