​Iran Slows Its Missile Launches as Israel Dominates Air Space

Summary

WSJ What’s News: Iran Slows Its Missile Launches as Israel Dominates Air Space Episode Release Date: June 18, 2025

The latest episode of WSJ What’s News, hosted by Alex Osola from The Wall Street Journal, delves into some of the most pressing global and economic issues of the day. From escalating Middle Eastern tensions to significant shifts in U.S. economic policies and corporate strategies, the episode provides a comprehensive overview of events shaping the world. Below is a detailed summary of the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented.

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1. Iran-Israel Conflict: A Changing Dynamics

The episode opens with a focus on the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, highlighting a recent slowdown in Iranian missile launches and Israel's enhanced control over Iranian airspace.

President Trump's Stance President Trump addressed reporters expressing his reluctance to engage in a direct conflict with Iran. However, he voiced concerns over Iran's potential development of nuclear weapons, stating, “I may do it, I may not do it” regarding striking Iran’s nuclear facilities (00:57). He also suggested that Iran's leadership had delayed negotiations on their nuclear ambitions, indicating a tense diplomatic atmosphere.

Military Buildup and Strategic Moves In response to escalating tensions, the U.S. Military has increased its presence in the Middle East. The Pentagon clarifies that this buildup is "purely defensive" but acknowledges it positions the U.S. favorably should involvement intensify (00:57). This move serves both as a deterrent and a strategic pressure point on Iran.

Iran's Defiant Response Iranian leadership remains steadfast. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared, “We do not negotiate under duress,” emphasizing that any U.S. military intervention would lead to “irreparable consequences” (00:57). This rhetoric underscores the deep-seated resolve on both sides.

Insights from WSJ Correspondent Dov Lieber Alex Osola converses with Dov Lieber from Israel, who provides an in-depth analysis of the recent slowdown in missile launches:

• Targeting Missile Launchers: Israel has been systematically targeting Iran’s missile launchers, creating a bottleneck in Iran’s missile deployment capabilities (02:43).
• Air Superiority: With complete control over Iranian airspace, Israeli pilots can detect and neutralize missile threats before they are launched. Lieber notes, “Israel has full control over the skies of Iran,” allowing preemptive strikes (02:43).
• Command and Control Disruption: The elimination of senior military officials hampers Iran’s ability to coordinate large-scale attacks, making it challenging for them to execute synchronized missile launches (02:43).
• Shift to Advanced Missiles: Iran is now resorting to hypersonic missiles, which are faster and more maneuverable, posing a significant challenge to Israeli defenses. Lieber warns, “Israel doesn’t yet have in its array of air defense systems one that’s specifically for hypersonic missiles” (04:24).

Future of the Conflict Lieber cautions that the conflict may escalate into a war of attrition, with Iran possibly increasing missile launches despite current slowdowns. He emphasizes, “The ballgame is not over, not even close” (05:00), indicating a prolonged and volatile situation in the region.

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2. Federal Reserve Holds Rates Steady Amid Economic Uncertainty

The Federal Reserve's latest decision to hold interest rates steady has significant implications for the U.S. economy. The episode explores the factors influencing this decision and its potential future impacts.

Fed's Decision and Market Reaction Federal Reserve officials decided to maintain current interest rates but left the possibility open for cuts later in the year. This stance came despite President Trump’s calls for more aggressive rate reductions. In response, U.S. stocks experienced modest movements: the Dow fell by 0.1%, the Nasdaq rose by 0.1%, and the S&P 500 remained flat (08:22).

Economic Projections and Inflation Concerns The Fed released its first economic projections since the imposition of significant tariffs on April 2nd, indicating an expectation of higher inflation and rising unemployment rates this year compared to previous projections. Fed Chair Jerome Powell highlighted, “We expect a meaningful amount of inflation to arrive in coming months, and we have to take that into account” (06:10).

Insights from WSJ Chief Economics Correspondent Nick Timoros Nick Timoros elaborates on the Fed’s considerations:

• Labor Market and Inflation: The Fed is primarily concerned with the interplay between the labor market's strength and inflation trends (06:31). While inflation indicators have improved, there is apprehension about potential price increases driven by ongoing tariffs.
• Tariff Impact: Tariffs remain a significant variable, with the Fed monitoring their effect on inflation and economic growth. Strong tariffs could lead to higher prices and a potential cooling of the labor market if companies reduce hiring or lay off workers (06:31).
• Presidential Pressure: Although President Trump has been vocal about lowering interest rates, Timoros notes that “it hasn’t” directly influenced the Fed’s decision (07:17). The Fed prioritizes economic indicators over political pressures, focusing on maintaining economic stability.

Economic Outlook The Fed is cautiously optimistic but remains vigilant. The possibility of rate cuts exists, contingent on observable changes in labor markets and inflation metrics. Timoros emphasizes, “First, does the labor market crack or do we get this tariff inflation that forces the Fed to stay on hold for even longer?” (07:17).

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3. U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee's Transgender Ban

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that prohibits gender transition treatments for minors. This ruling, which split 6 to 3 along ideological lines, has significant implications for transgender rights in the United States.

Court's Rationale and Implications The Supreme Court rejected arguments that the ban constitutes sex discrimination, thereby maintaining the legality of Tennessee’s stance. This decision follows a pattern of the Trump administration targeting transgender rights through various policies, including the expulsion of transgender personnel from the military and the withdrawal of support for transgender athletes in collegiate sports.

Impact on Transgender Community The ruling represents a significant setback for transgender rights advocates, reinforcing governmental restrictions on gender transition treatments for minors and limiting protections for transgender individuals in other sectors.

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4. Corporate Headcount Reductions: A Shift in Business Philosophy

A notable trend in the corporate world is the reduction of white-collar workforces among major U.S. companies. This shift reflects a broader change in business philosophy, emphasizing efficiency and technological integration over traditional workforce expansion.

Overview of Workforce Reductions Employment data from Live Data Technologies reveals that U.S. public companies have collectively reduced their white-collar workforces by approximately 3.5% over the past three years. Major corporations like Walmart, Bank of America, and General Motors have all implemented significant headcount cuts.

Interview with WSJ Reporter Chip Cutter Chip Cutter provides insights into the underlying reasons for these reductions:

• Embracing a Leaner Workforce: Companies are moving towards smaller, more efficient teams. Cutter explains, “A lot of executives are now coming around to the idea that having too many employees might be an impediment” (10:44).
• Adoption of AI and Technology: The integration of artificial intelligence and other technologies allows companies to maintain or even accelerate growth with fewer employees. Cutter notes, “Prove to us that the AI can’t do this job” (10:44).
• Adapting to Rapid Changes: Businesses are striving to become more nimble and capable of pivoting quickly in response to market demands. For example, Procter & Gamble’s recent announcement to cut 7,000 jobs aims to create broader roles and smaller, more impactful teams (11:33).
• Changing Hiring Cycles: Unlike the traditional hiring cycle tied closely to economic conditions, current reductions seem to reflect a deeper strategic shift. Cutter observes, “Corporate profits rose to a record high at the end of last year… the answer is not adding more people to grow” (12:38).

Impact on Workers While these changes may lead to greater efficiency and innovation, they also pose challenges for employees who must adapt to expanded responsibilities and a more demanding work environment. Cutter highlights potential difficulties workers may face in balancing increased workloads (12:26).

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Conclusion

The WSJ What’s News episode from June 18, 2025, provides a thorough examination of critical global tensions, economic policies, judicial decisions, and corporate strategies. From the shifting dynamics in the Iran-Israel conflict and the Federal Reserve's cautious approach to interest rates, to significant judicial rulings affecting transgender rights and a transformative trend in corporate workforce management, the episode underscores the complex interplay of factors shaping today's world. For listeners seeking a nuanced understanding of these developments, the episode offers valuable insights and expert analyses.

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Produced by Pierre Bienname and Anthony Banci, with supervising producer Matthew Walls. For more updates, tune in to the next episode of WSJ What’s News.

Transcript

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[Alex Osola]

Iran says it won't surrender even as it's launching fewer missiles at Israel. Plus, the Fed holds rates steady but keeps the door open to cuts later this year and why the biggest companies in the US Are reducing their headcount.

[Chip Cutter]

It's such a shift from even a few years ago in the pandemic when a lot of companies were doing things what we would call talent hoarding, where they'd hire people even when they didn't have a job for them. Now it's like you do not add headcount.

[Alex Osola]

Alex it's Wednesday, June 18th. I'm Alex Osola for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of what's news, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. First up on today's show is the latest on the conflict between Iran and Israel. President Trump told reporters that he doesn't want to get involved in a conflict with Iran, but that he was concerned that the country was close to developing a nuclear weapon and he thinks Iran would use it. The president has been non committal about whether to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, saying, quote, I may do it, I may not do it. Trump also said Iran wants to negotiate over its nuclear ambitions, but suggested the country's leaders had waited too long to make a deal. The US Military has built up forces in the Middle east in recent days. While the Pentagon said the military buildup is purely defensive, it better positions the U.S. should Trump decide to join Israeli attacks on Iran. It could also be a tactic to pressure Iran or force it to make concessions. Iran issued a defiant response to President Trump today, saying it does not negotiate under duress. Earlier in the day, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that his country won't surrender and that any US Military intervention would bring irreparable consequences. Israel's dominance over Iranian skies means that Iran is firing fewer missiles at Israel each day, but concerns remain that Tehran is Preserving its stockpile. For more on the military conflict, I'm joined now by WSJ correspondent Dov Lieber, speaking to us from Israel. Dov, as I just mentioned, fewer Iranian missiles have reached Israel in the past few days. What are the reasons behind that slowdown?

[Dov Lieber]

Israeli officials and security analysts give a number of reasons. One is that since this conflict broke out, Israel has been targeting Iran's missile launchers. Iran has far fewer launchers than it does have missiles. So this is a bottleneck in the system. The other reason is Israel says it has full control over the skies of Iran. That means Israeli pilots can look down into Iran and look for Iranians about to shoot missiles. You know, there are certain signs when that's going to happen. The satellites can see it, the Israeli pilots can see it, and then they can strike those missiles on the ground before they're ever launched. And Israel has killed a number of senior military officials and mid level commanders. And this harms the command and control capabilities of Iran. And this also makes it harder, large, coordinated attacks. And the last thing is Iran's military is now dipping into its missile arsenals, the types of missiles that just take longer to set up and shoot. And this gives Israeli pilots more time to spot them and destroy them before they ever leave the ground. So that's another reason. And it's also another indication that Iran is truly losing its full capability of shooting missiles as it had on the first day. And I'll give you an example. On the first 24 hours, Iran fired around 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, and that was in four different barrages. On Tuesday, it fired around a total of 60 missiles. And that was between eight different barrages. Each barrage has fewer missiles in it and that makes it a lot easier for Israeli air defenses to intercept those missiles.

[Alex Osola]

Do we have a sense of whether Iran's military capability now is depleted or if they're just sort of pivoting to different types of armaments?

[Dov Lieber]

What experts here say is that Iran will likely pivot to using its most advanced missiles, these hypersonic missiles that are super fast, fast and have the ability to maneuver as they get closer to the target. And this makes it much more difficult for Israeli defenses to intercept. And one thing that's important to note here is that Israel doesn't yet have in its array of air defense systems one that's specifically for hypersonic missiles. And that means there's a real vulnerability here.

[Alex Osola]

Where might the conflict go from here? If Iran is unwilling to make concessions.

[Dov Lieber]

We'Re going to a place where Iran could drag Israel into a war of attrition where they fire several missiles a day or something like that. And this could still be a very, very difficult situation for Israel. So Israel definitely has the advantage. But ballgame is not over, not even close.

[Alex Osola]

That was WSJ correspondent Dov Lieber. Thank you, Dov.

[Dov Lieber]

Thank you.

[Alex Osola]

Federal Reserve officials agreed to hold rates steady today, but they left the door open to cutting interest rates in the second half of the year. President Trump preemptively blasted the widely anticipated rate decision earlier in the day and called for much more dramatic rate cuts to resume rate cuts that they started last year. Fed officials likely need to see either labor markets soften or stronger evidence that price increases due to tariffs will be relatively muted. The Fed released its first economic projections since Trump's large Liberation Day tariff announcements on April 2nd. They show that officials expect inflation and unemployment to rise this year by more than they projected in March. Fed Chair Jerome Powell mentioned the higher inflation expectations in his remarks after the central bank's decision was announced.

[Advertiser]

The thing that every forecaster, every outside forecaster and the Fed is saying is that we expect a meaningful amount of inflation to arrive in coming months, and we have to take that into account.

[Alex Osola]

WSJ Chief Economics Corporation correspondent Nick Timoros joins me now. Nick, what are some of the factors that the Fed has considered going into this most recent decision?

[Nick Timoros]

Well, the big questions for the Fed are what's happening in the labor market and what's happening to inflation. And over the last few months, the picture on inflation has gotten better and the labor market looks about the same as it did, maybe just a touch softer. The issue, of course, what's going to happen with prices because of tariffs. So the fact that inflation has been getting better, normally that would be enough to get the Fed to consider cutting here. But because they're worried that prices might start going up this summer, it's frozen them in place and they're now waiting to see what happens. First, does the labor market crack or do we get this tariff inflation that forces the Fed to stay on hold for even longer?

[Alex Osola]

President Trump has, of course, been pressuring the Fed to cut rates. Has that played a role here?

[Nick Timoros]

It hasn't. The president did this in his first term, and I think after a while, everybody sort of got used to it. The president wants lower interest rates. He's arguing that there is no inflation. And there are other people who are making the same point, that the Fed doesn't have to worry so much about inflation. But the arguments that you hear from those people really goes along these lines. Inflation isn't going to happen here because tariffs are bad for the economy. They hurt growth. They squeeze corporate profit margins. As profits decline, companies will lay people off and you get a recession. And so the Fed needs to be more worried about the recession risks coming from all this tariff uncertainty than they need to about inflation. Of course, that's not the argument that Donald Trump is making. He's arguing that the economy is strong and it would be even stronger if the overnight cost of money was lower.

[Alex Osola]

That was WSJ chief economics correspondent Nick Timiros. Thank you, Nick.

[Nick Timoros]

Thanks for having me.

[Alex Osola]

US Stocks pared gains today as Powell spoke about the Fed's decision ending the session narrowly mixed. The Dow fell 0.1%, the Nasdaq rose about 0.1%, and the S&P 500 stayed flat. Oil prices were flat a day after settling at their highest since January. The U.S. supreme Court has upheld a Tennessee law barring gender transition treatments for minors, rejecting claims that the ban amounts to sex discrimination. The decision, which broke 6 to 3 along ideological lines, was the latest setback for transgender rights. The Trump administration has targeted transgender rights in policies that range from expelling transgender personnel from the military to halting funding for the University of Pennsylvania because it had a transgender female on its women's swim team. Coming up, why thriving companies are cutting workers. That's after the break.

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[Alex Osola]

In the past, when a company added employees to its workforce, it was a sign that the company was thriving, that sales were surging, that they were confident about the future future. Now a growing workforce is a sign that a company is doing something wrong. According to employment data provider Live Data Technologies, US Public companies have reduced their white collar workforces by a collective 3 1/2% over the past three years. Companies like Walmart, bank of America and General Motors have all shrunk their headcount in recent years. The Journal's chip cutter reports that the cuts go beyond typical cost trimming and speak to a broader shift in philosophy. And he joins me now with more chip. What is at the heart of this philosophy?

[Chip Cutter]

Well, I think it's sort of a new calculus, a new thinking that fewer employees actually means faster growth. A lot of executives are now kind of coming around to the idea that having too many employees might be an impediment. A lot of bosses are saying, what if we were smaller? What if we shrunk? Could this actually be more helpful to us? I think companies have seen what startups are able to do now with very few employees. That's a factor too. I mean, obviously AI is the center of all this, and bosses just see the potential of this technology, even if it's not fully realized. And just think, couldn't our company be a little bit smaller? And it's such a shift from even a few years ago in the pandemic when a lot of companies were doing things what we would call talent hoarding, where they'd hire people even when they didn't have a job for them. Now it's like you do not add headcount. Prove to us that the AI can't do this job.

[Alex Osola]

Is there something to this idea that generally things are also happening more quickly and that the staff needs to be kind of more nimble, be able to pivot?

[Chip Cutter]

Definitely. You think about what Procter and Gamble recently did. They announced earlier this month they would cut 7,000 jobs. That's about 15% of its non manufacturing workforce. And the idea there was to create broader roles and smaller teams. So they want to make sure that people in these jobs feel like they have a big impactful role and that they're on teams where they can get things done. And you see this mentioned from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy too, where he has told people at the company earlier this year, you don't need 50 people on every project. Great leaders are able to operate with, in his words, not a lot of resources. They're able to just sort of be scrappy and get things done. And I think that ethos is just trickling through so many different companies right now. And of course, that may not mean great things for workers inside these companies, trying to figure out how they balance all the different responsibilities.

[Alex Osola]

You know, Chip, in the past, usually companies would let go of workers in recessions, then staff up when the economy picks up. Is this hiring cycle no longer tied to the economy in that way, then?

[Chip Cutter]

It almost feels like it. It feels deeper that it's kind of turning this usual cycle on its head. I mean, if you think about it, corporate profits rose to a record high at the end of last year. That was according to the Federal reserve Bank of St. Louis. I mean, they're navigating really difficult forces on tariffs and geopolitics and all of that right now. Companies are doing fine, but I think they feel like even with all of this, the answer is not adding more people to grow. The idea is that you can still grow. You can reach all these lofty targets without having to actually add more headcount.

[Alex Osola]

Are there certain kinds of positions that are being more affected by this trend?

[Chip Cutter]

It really is. First off, the white collar jobs, jobs in marketing and human resources and law. I mean, we're starting to see the effects of sort of AI in some of these positions. But it's also important to note it's still early on all this, too, and so the effects could be even more drastic in years to come.

[Alex Osola]

That was WSJ reporter Chip Cutter. Chip, thanks as always.

[Chip Cutter]

Thanks for having me.

[Alex Osola]

And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname and Anthony Banci. Our supervising producer was Matthew Walls. I'm Alex Osola for the Wall Street Journal. We're off tomorrow for the Juneteenth holiday, but we'll be back with a new show Friday morning. Thanks for listening, Sam.