The News Roundup For April 24, 2026

This message comes from Rosetta Stone and their newest language learning experience, Rosetta Stone Sapphire. Get unlimited access to all 25 Rosetta Stone languages and Sapphire Learning Tools. Visit rosettastone.com slash NPR and receive 20% off. Hi, it's Naila, your host for this edition of the News Roundup. Just a quick heads up before we start the show. The news is rapidly changing and things may have changed by the time you hear this episode. Stay up to date with all the latest by listening to your local NPRN. member station and visiting npr.org.

I'm Nailibu. It's the 1A Friday News Roundup. A battle of wills between Iran in the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz escalates with both sides saying they're in charge. The price of oil rises again as supply contractions continue. And Americans say they're beginning to feel the economic pain with new polls showing Trump's disapproval ratings ticking up when it comes to his handling of the war and the economy. Also, Democrats celebrate a victory in the redistricting battle ahead of the midterms as voters approve redrawing Virginia's congressional maps to favor the party and the GOP pushes for a budget deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end the partial government shutdown. Here to discuss these stories of the

week and more in studio with me, Steve Clemens, editor at large at the national interest. Hi, Steve. Great to be with you, Naila. Arthur Delaney, senior reporter at Post. Thank you for being with us, Arthur. It's great to be with us. And Taylor Popolars, National Political Reporter based at the White House for Spectrum News. Hi, Taylor. Hey there, Naila. Great to be back. As always, for those of you listening, we want to hear from you this hour as well. You can email your questions and comments about the week's news to 1a at wamu.org. Let's start with the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, which appeared to enter a new phase this week. The intense bombardment of the Islamic Republic by the U.S. and Israeli military has

seized. But the struggle. over who controls the strait of Hormuz intensified. Both the U.S. and Iran escalated tensions with threatening statements on social media and seizures of vessels at sea on Thursday. Bloomberg's Jeff Mason asked President Trump about a timeline to return to the negotiating table and end the war. Don't rush me, Jeff. You know, guys like you, you want to say, oh, so we were in Vietnam, like, for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years.

We're in for all the – I don't like to say World War II. because that was a biggie. But we were four and a half, almost five years in World War II. We were in the Korean War for seven years. I've been doing this for six weeks. Steve, what do you make of the president's statements there if he's starting to talk about World War II or Korea in years? It's a remarkable statement.

Already at six weeks, we're 300% more than he said at the beginning, this is going to be a couple of weeks' excursion. the president's ability to constantly scramble the mission and purpose of this conflict and to talk to Americans in a way, you know, sort of a different explanation for different groups of people. And now we see, as many of his advisors warned him, we now know from great reporting about the president's decision. Many warned it would have this character. It would go on and on and on. And knowing that definitive point when this was over was going to be hard.

and the president is now slipping into the slippery slope of an ongoing conflict. And you really get the impression that we're winging it and that there wasn't a clear plan and there is no clear plan to get out of it now. So he does seem to really want to get out of it. One of the most striking things on Thursday in the Oval Office was the president was asked about gas prices and the impact that the war is having on it. And he said, yeah, people are just going to like have to deal with higher gas prices for, you know, an extended period of time.

but he keeps saying it will be worth it because then in his view, Iran won't have a nuclear weapon. But prices have gone up over a dollar a gallon, as everybody knows. He also called it fake inflation, the rise in gas prices. And that leads to the messaging confusion because even yesterday when he said it's week six of the war, it's actually week eight of the war. We're approaching day 60 of the conflict. So it's been hard to track in addition to the economic impact here at home. As you're talking about that, we did hear from Hakeem Jeffries House Democratic leader slamming the president. for the economic impact. Costs are going up and a big part of the problem right now,

particularly as it relates to skyrocketing gas prices, is Donald Trump's reckless and costly war of choice and is making life more expensive for the American people. So we're looking at average gas prices in the U.S. hitting more than $4 a gallon. That's according to AAA, nearly 80% of Americans say they've changed their spending habits in response to pain at the pump. That's according to a new CNBC All-America Economic Survey. Steve, how else are we starting to see the war affect the broader U.S. economy right now? And we don't really know how long this pain's going to last. Kitchen table economics are just screwed by this moment.

How many times have we talked about in another area the hard choices that middle-class families often have to make, particularly elder Americans, about between prescription drugs and the prices, of food. Guess what? When you add skyrocketing gas prices into that, they're now having to make tougher choices about how they manage their household accounts. We see lots of drivers, truck drivers, construction workers choosing not to drive. We also see the beginnings of something kind of strange, you know, called drilling and draining. There's a new crime out there where people are drilling into some criminals are drilling into gas tanks of trucks, of cars, and stealing the gas causing $1,000 of damage for $50, $60 a gas.

So people are feeling this in a stressed out way. And I have to say that my worry, as this goes on, we're looking at $4 a gallon right now. It could go significantly higher the longer this conflict goes. We know that there is this classified document floating around saying the Strait of Hormuz could be closed for more than six months that if everything went right from this moment forward and we would be able to demine that straight,

we would then be six months from now begin to get safe passage through that straight. So this is not going away anytime soon and families and workers are feeling the brunt of it. Taylor, can I ask you about a Fox News poll release Wednesday that found that Democrats have the edge over Republicans on economic issues for the first time since 2010? Mm-hmm. And that's a Fox News poll. And Fox News polling is largely respected for being pretty, you know, on the mark. It's something the Trump White House does not want to acknowledge right now. But you played that clip from Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, every day he and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer have been out there bashing the war, bashing the economic impact and basically saying, look American people, President Trump and Republicans in Congress have led us into this.

Democrats give us the chance this fall to lead us out of it, which I think is striking. And there's an acknowledgement, as Steve outlined, the domestic economic impact of this war, even though people might not be following the day-to-day negotiations and the day-to-day, how many missiles are being. launched in the Middle East. I talked last week with Kelly Loeffler, the administrator of the small business administration, because there's a crisis right now for farmers, specifically, who rely on diesel fuel, but also fertilizer. And so much of the world's fertilizer comes from the Middle East. Prices have skyrocketed. The Farm Bureau surveyed 6,000 farmers over the last month, and over 70% of them said, we can't buy enough fertilizer to plant our crop. And I asked Kelly Loeffler about this. I said, what do you say to small business owners who are dealing with the broader impact of this,

especially when the president is saying, you know, we have all the time in the world where in no rush. She told me, quote, they understand that this is a short-term effort to get a terrorist actor out of our energy supply chain. So they're basically hoping that Americans who are impacted by this are trusting them and saying the broader threat from Iran is worth this economic impact. But if it drags on for months instead of weeks, that could take a toll. Even if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries weren't saying the same thing every day,

hammering their message that Trump is driving up these prices, people would know. People see prices. People pay for this out of their pockets. And Trump himself said during the campaign that I'm not the war candidate. He said, I will get prices down right away. And he specifically trumpeted low gas prices whenever he could. So it's an extremely obvious economic disaster. And it's no wonder that it's showing up in the polls now with Democrats getting an advantage. But, Arthur, we also saw the Senate on Wednesday reject the fifth. attempt by Democrats to limit President Trump's war powers on Iran. A significant milestone is coming up next week, May 1st mark 60 days since the conflict began. That's also the deadline set by the 1973 War Powers Act that gives the president the ability to use military force without congressional authorization. So do we have a sense of how lawmakers are going to handle this 60-day marker? What was the talk about that on the Hill this week?

The 60-day marker has been really significant in Hallway Conversations. with Republicans and Democrats, but really it's the Trump can extend it with a statement to Congress. So it's going to be the 90-day marker after we reached the 60-day marker. Regarding the war powers resolutions, there is no suspense in that vote. You got Rand Paul, one Republican who voted for it, and John Fetterman, one Republican against. I interviewed Tammy Baldwin, the senator, the Democratic senator who's introducing the resolution this weekend. And she knew it would fail.

And she said, what we're doing is reflecting the sentiment of the American. people, which is true. People don't like the war. The war powers resolution is really just a vote, a vibe check, if you will, and they're doing a similar thing in the House of Representatives. I think Democrats are extremely comfortable continuing to hold these votes, even if they don't go their way. It does mean something very important, though, that the critics of the president should understand, is that the Republican apparatus out there and politicians are still solidly with the president. You can find a boutique couple of people here and there. Regardless of what we've talked about with economic pain, polling.

Republicans are solid right now. They're going into this electoral storm together and united at this moment, and they are not yet defecting. So while we're talking about the pressure on the American people and various things that we're seeing as indicators, so far, Trump has been very successful at holding his coalition together. And we don't often talk about that. But right now, they're fully united despite some of the surface noise on the ground. This is very in the weeds for political nerds. But I think as the November midterm elections approach, it's going to be interesting if congressional Republicans, if the war continues, if prices remain high, if they at any time start to feel like they have to push back on the president's insistence that this

conflict makes sense and that the economic impact at home is worthwhile. The president was supposed to spend most of this year on a tour talking about affordability. That's largely been put aside because of the war and because of all the foreign policy. Republicans right now, as Steve and Arthur said, are okay with it, But the question is come August, September, October, when voters are starting to pay more attention, well, they say, Mr. President, we need you back on the road here. Stop talking about the wars and help us lower gas prices. Well, we have to take a quick break. But when we come back, more shakeups in Trump's cabinet and a redistricting victory for Democrats in Virginia. Stay with us.

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On Wednesday, the Trump administration fired John Feelein, its top naval official. Arthur, what do we know about why he was pushed out? Well, first of all, this is a surprising person to fire when you're in the middle of a war with a major Navy component. Reportedly, the firing was due to dissatisfaction with Feelein's work to build a new Trump-class fleet of battleships for the Navy. Mark Kansy, and an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has said that Trump's specs for this. He wants it to be, you know, like the biggest battleships ever made are, and he wants them done, you know, within a matter of years.

He says it's impossible. And so apparently feeling ran up against this impossibility. And it's something that you see happen to a lot of Trump appointees where they can't do the impossible or illegal things that he wants and then they're out. What if anything does this firing say about the relationship between the administration? administration in the military. Well, it shows you that the military is not different from other parts of the government, like the Justice Department, where Trump's got his personal lawyers in charge.

It's all just an appendage of the president and subject to his political or, you know, I guess, structural, monumental desires. There's been a lot of news over the last year from Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, pushing out top military leaders who, apparently are crossing him, whether it's on personal terms or within the context of the job. What's been striking is President Trump has largely trusted Pete Hegseth in doing this, right before the Navy secretary was dismissed. The Army chief of staff, who was a very well-respected general, was abruptly pushed out. And notably, the Secretary of the Army, who was a close personal

friend of Vice President JD Vance, publicly defended that general and basically said, I was bummed that he got pushed out. But Pete Hegseth was, you know, apparently frustrated with him. So this is the latest instance. I also think it's interesting to Arthur's point because I spoke to somebody at the Pentagon to try to get clarity on like, we're in the middle of a naval blockade. How does the Secretary of the Navy get pushed out? The way the administration is spinning it is that the Secretary of the Navy is a civilian, largely civilian position.

John Feeleon has no military background. He was a prominent Florida businessman and Republican donor who got confirmed to this position. But the person I spoke with said his role was overseeing training and equipment for the Navy, not day-to-day combat operations. They argue that U.S. Central Command, which has its own commander, Brad Cooper, who's been overseeing everything, he's the one overseeing this blockade. So they argue it's not that much of a disruption, but optically, it's notable. I think it's important to note that in the first year of the Trump administration, there was almost no dissension, no backbiting,

you know, nobody trying to undermine each other. We've entered in a new phase. And I think it's also important to remember that Abraham Lincoln fired a lot of generals, and they had fired a lot of generals about how the prosecution of that conflict was going on at the time. So presidents do this and secretaries of war do that. But what we're seeing is the lack of consensus among those people leading the Pentagon on how to prosecute these conflicts, how to manage our people. Remember, we even had cases where marine helicopter, you know, stage itself out of Kid Rock. And those pilots were put on suspension and Pete Hegseth brought them back. So it's not just about Iran or, you know, blowing boats out of the water off of Venezuela or other kinds of things that we know that there's been tension.

There are many fronts where there are very fundamental differences between codes of contact and the prosecution of this conflict by those with military experience and their civilian leader. Also out of a job on Monday, the White House announced Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer had stepped down from her role. Keith Sonderling, Deputy Secretary of Labor, is temporarily going to step in. The resignation comes after the Labor Department's inspector general launched an internal investigation into complaints about her alleged misconduct, including having an affair with a subordinate drinking alcohol on the job, using taxpayer-funded travel to visit with friends and family. Chavez Juremer's husband, Sean, has also been barred from the Labor Department headquarters after several staffers said he touched them inappropriately. Police and prosecutors investigated the allegation but declined to bring charges. Steve, to your point, as we're thinking about the state of President Trump's cabinet, we also saw since March we've former Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem,

former Attorney General Pam Bondi, what's the state of the president's cabinet? I think right now they're flushing out people that are considered to be high cost or in conflict with the president. And there are others probably in the firing line. There are lots of rumors that go around. And, you know, sometimes, you know, the rumors about Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce. My view is that I haven't seen that. Actually, I've seen Howard Lutnick in and around the president quite often. So it's hard to read these. Tulsi Gabbard. Everyone knows she has a different sense of when you should deploy U.S. forces. She was sort of with the president's first framing of don't go chase monsters around the world because they can bite you. And so people see Tulsi Gabbard. While he's not a member of the cabinet, the person I think is most endangered right now is Kash Patel at the FBI. So he said on Tuesday he's not worried about losing his job. That's despite a recent Atlantic article that claimed excessive drinking and unexplained absences were putting his role in jeopardy.

Can you say definitively that you have not been intoxicated or absent during your tenure as FBI director? I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia. And as when they get louder, it just means I'm doing my job. On Monday, Kash Patel filed a $250 million defamation suit against the Atlantic over the article. Following a similar suit, Kash Patel made against a former FBI official who he says defamed him in comments on TV. A judge dismissed that claim this week. Taylor, first let's just talk about, as to Steve's point, about Kash Patel before we get to this Atlantic suit, just comments on his actions this week. Well, the Atlantic story was stunning. I think what's been one of the striking things about, to Steve's point, President Trump's second term, is that the cabinet has been so much more united and they've been able to ride out a lot of controversies that in any other administration would be a weeks or months long story. The former labor secretary's scandals alone in any other administration would have defined multiple news cycles and would have been front page news, but there's just so much happening under Donald Trump that it kind of gets ignored. The president's team in 2025,

really did pride themselves on saying there is no turnover, everybody's united around this front. And I think to Steve's point, the president has a lot of personal relationships with a lot of these members, like Howard Lutnick. He's close friends with Howard Lutnick. Kash Patel spent Donald Trump's four years out of office very publicly just fawning over the president. At one point, he wrote a children's book that depicted Donald Trump as the king. And so Trump likes keeping those people around despite the scandals. Now you have this Atlantic piece. Kash Patel's conduct is getting more attention. A lot of people saw the viral video of him partying with the Olympic hockey team at the Olympics. There's so many questions about his use of the FBI's jet for personal reasons, the security that his girlfriend is getting. She's also a singer and she has a giant security team following her everywhere. But so far, the president has largely stuck by him. I think what will be interesting, though, this Atlantic lawsuit has gotten a good amount of attention based on Kash Patel's other legal efforts in this scenario. they've largely fallen short and the Atlantic is defending their reporting and saying they're going to be a-okay.

So you'll have to see if the president gets frustrated at all. I would just say one thing. There's no level of obsequiousness that will protect one from President Trump if he feels like you're distracting from his agenda from him. And also the president who notably does not drink, I would just like to point out, right? President Trump notably is not a character flaws like this or things President Trump doesn't like to tolerate. During the same press conference, Kash Patel joined Deputy Attorney. General Todd Blanche to announce charges the Justice Department had filed against the Southern Poverty Law Center. That's a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that specializes in civil

rights litigation. The charges include wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering related to the Southern Poverty Law Center's use of paid informants to infiltrate fall right loops like the KKK. Arthur, for years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has drawn criticism from conservative groups over how it defines hate. How does this indictment fit into the Trump administration's pattern of using the Justice Department to punish its political adversaries? Well, it fits that pattern perfectly. It's typical for them in that they're going after an organization that they view as antagonistic toward them. Now, they said that this was actually an investigation that started during the Biden administration, which is interesting.

a lot of legal experts said that they don't have important stuff in their complaint against the Southern Poverty Law Center, such as donors actually being upset that they feel their money was misused. So it could be another big flop. And they've had a lot of big flops. I think one reason that Attorney General Pambandi is out of a job is that she was not able to prosecute Trump's enemies. and so I don't think that this organization is necessarily one of those. But I think an important dynamic is that Trump asks people to do things that can't be done and then gets mad at them. And it's predictable that you'll have people who are his cabinet secretary's winding up on the outs and even his enemies eventually. We just got this question from Elaine who asks, with the complicated mess in Iran, I am surprised and alarmed that Trump is talking about further military foreign interventions such as in Cuba.

Could your guess talk a little bit about Trump's continuing desire to use U.S. military might abroad? Yes. The president feels more emboldened than ever to basically check off his list of goals when it comes on the foreign policy front. He viewed his reelection in 2024 as a mandate. His team says that on camera every single day. And what's striking, Arthur mentioned it earlier in the show, but the president campaigned repeatedly. If anybody went to a rally in 2023 or 2024, he said, no more forever wars. We're going to focus on America first.

We're not going to be involved in conflicts overseas. But since he returned to office, he has spent so much time on foreign policy and on foreign conflicts. But I think the capture of Nicholas Maduro, the Venezuelan president right at the start of this year, really signifies a lot of the president's thinking. He saw that very impressive military operation that was able to be conducted largely in a day and then bring a country's president to the United States. and, you know, put him in a prison and face trial.

President Trump, who loves instant gratification, saw that and said, oh, I could do that elsewhere. And there's been a lot of reporting about how the president maybe went into this Iran war, viewing, oh, this could be a shorter excursion, as he likes to say, you know, similar to what we did in Venezuela, the president so casually talks about taking over Cuba. I've been outside Marine One, the helicopter, when he's coming or going from the White House, and he'll say, yeah, we're probably going to overthrow them soon, but it could be friendly. And you sit back and you're like, whoa, like that's a significant statement from the president.

But a lot of it is rooted in oil, a lot of it is rooted in economics. President's own family has a lot of ties in a lot of these countries, especially in the Middle East. So he talks about it so casually, but it's something that he is talking about every single day. The operation in Venezuela was partly about Cuba because that Venezuela was a patron of Cuba. Cuba is now teetering more so than ever economically. There's power outages all the time because they don't have. the support from Venezuela, but they did have the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, as a Cuban background. And this has long been a foreign policy goal of the Florida Republican establishment

that is now ascendant because Marco Rubio is in this job. So even though it would seem the Iran war is not going well, I wouldn't rule it out more adventurism in Cuba. Despite the personal agenda of the Secretary of State on Cuba and Cuban politics, what's remarkable in the this shift to regime change by Trump is how little. This is John Bolton's criticism. John Bolton says regime changes you can get out there. He says they're not doing regime change right. They're going in and knocking out leaders and just then and we're seeing what we're doing right now is acquiescing to Iran. So there's a we didn't get regime change in Iran. We're not going to see a regime change in Iran, at least not in the near term. And so the fact that they're not laying the groundwork or roots for the

other kinds of things, if you were going to be a regime change agent, what you're doing, as you're punching, seeing how it lands. And I find interesting, less the criticism from the left about this, but more the criticism from the right about the president's inadequacy's lack of planning, lack of strategy if you're trying to change governments and regimes. Let's turn to some election news. We got this comment from Rodney regarding Trump's reaction to Tuesday's vote in Virginia. So on Tuesday, Virginia voters passed a gerrymandered map that could secure four additional

House seats for Democrats in the midterm election. Rodney says, I am in Virginia and glad that Virginia voted yes for redistricting. This was only a reaction to Texas redistricting directed by Trump. How utterly ignorant for him to say the Virginia vote was rigged. Now Republicans want to waste more tax dollars on a court case. So in terms of the contradicting messaging, I actually went back and I looked last summer, 2025, when Texas Republican state legislators and that Texas House approved changing their map. President Trump celebrated it. And this shifted the map more toward Republicans. But he posted about it and he said, big win for the great state of Texas. Everything passed. We're on our way to five more congressional seats and saving your rights,

your freedoms, and your country itself. Compare that to the president's post about Virginia, where Democrats notch to victory. And he immediately posted a rigged election took place last night. And, you know, we have to stop this and Republican. So that's how the president views this. And we've seen this for years. When he wins, he celebrates it and he doesn't question it. When he loses, he questions it and tries to say that it's rigged. But in the context of redistricting, it's been so abundantly clear, even from prominent Republican activists, they will go, Scott Pressler, who runs a big grassroots organization, went to

Indiana to campaign against Republican lawmakers who decided not to redistrict. And then the next day went to Virginia to campaign for redistricting and saying, or saying, we need to stop the redistricting. So it's very political. Right. Despite what the president is saying, Steve, what does Virginia's vote potentially mean for the balance of power in Congress? Well, I think it's a big wash. I think at the end of the day, I think the Republicans regret opening this door. The Democrats in California and Virginia have effectively responded to Texas and Florida efforts and other efforts to redistrict. And in essence, when you kind of add it up, I mean, they could get, I think they could get up the five votes in current conditions in Virginia. But it doesn't really put either party. If the Democrats had taken no action, President Trump would have succeeded and getting a big net gain for Republicans. Right now, both parties are. are essentially at parity. I mean, the way it stands right now, unless Florida does something, Democrats stand to gain,

like, two seats from these redistricting? It's narrow. Republicans in Virginia who are going to lose their jobs because of this told me that, well, Trump didn't start it. It's not his fault. Democrats started it in New York in 2022, which is not true. Coming up, we'll talk about Kevin Warsh's confirmation to be Federal Reserve Chairman and the latest on the U.S. government's refunding of $166 billion in tariff revenues.

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And that is, will you disclose how you divest those assets, or will you just collect a check for $100 million from someone whose whole business is betting on what the Fed will do? As I said to the ethics officials at the Federal Reserve and the Office of Government Ethics I'll take that as a no as will. He was also asked about his independence from President Trump. He has said, and I quote, anybody that disagrees with me will never be fed chairman. And he's made clear that you are his sock puppets saying last week

that interest rates will drop, quote, when Kevin gets in, yeah, I think they do. Not when economic conditions change will get lower rates. Not when the economy needs it. Nope. He said, when my God. Kevin Warsh is in there. We'll get the interest rates that I, Donald Trump, wants.

Taylor Poplaris, before we get into this hearing, just reaction on the DOJ saying they're going to drop this investigation. What does that mean? It's notable because this has been something President Trump has been spearheading because of a personal feud with Jerome Powell and disagreement with Jerome Powell not lowering interest rates as fast as President Trump wants. I think it's notable in the tweet that Janine Piro, the U.S. Attorney in D.C., put out, She said this is because the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns because there's a huge renovation taking place.

And then she said accordingly because of that, I've directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry. What's striking about this, though, is there's a North Carolina Republican senator named Thom Tillis who's retiring. He's kind of in his yolo phase because he's really frustrated. He's been very frustrated with this investigation. That's gotten a lot of bipartisan criticism, people saying there there's no there there. This is truly President Trump directing, as Arthur talked about earlier, the Justice Department to go after somebody because the president is frustrated with them. And Thom Tillis was vowing not to support Kevin Warsh's nomination to be Jerome Powell's successor until this investigation ended. And I think the Trump team is now realizing that Thom Tillis was going to hold firm and that Kevin Warsh would just be sitting and waiting until Thom Tillis maybe left office at the end of this year.

So this clears the way for that now. It's a big win for Thom Tillis. And it also lets a lot of Republicans who felt uncomfortable about this investigation because most of them respect Jerome Powell. They can now move on from that. It's also an interesting model because when Kristi Noem was under fire and under pressure and resigned, it was Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from Louisiana, another Republican senator who said this does not cross, you know, does not hold muster and should be out. So you're seeing effective Republican pushbacks to the White House and they're winning. All yeah, all it takes is one guy. One guy each time.

So let's get back to now that obstacle removed. Let's talk about the hearing itself. Key takeaways, Arthur? So Kevin Warsh, like a lot of Trump appointees, was asked who won the presidential election 2020. He couldn't say it was Joe Biden. And that's just, this is like standard, but it's also very weird. On the question of independence, he was on the Federal Reserve Board before during the recession when he was a total inflation hawk even when there was negative inflation there was

deflation he said we got to watch out about inflation and so now he's being cast into the opposite role as somebody cheering for lower rates instead of higher ones and so it obviously raises questions about his flexibility his ideological flexibility but he knows this and so he doesn't say i'm going to cut rates he says well there are ways rates can be lowered if, say, the Fed reduces its balance sheet or if AI massively boosts productivity. So he's very savvy in how he doesn't explicitly promise to do what Trump says. But even if he did say that, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman is not a dictator. You've got to win a vote among the other Fed board governors.

So it's not as though this will immediately cause interest rates to plummet, inflation to skyrocket. We'll have to see it up. Steve, I'm thinking back to what you said at the beginning of the hours. we're looking at economic pain as we're not clear about gas prices, that long-term effect on inflation. What else did we learn about how Warshwood handled this? Well, Kevin Warsh is very interesting because he wants to trim even more than other Fed governors what goes into the core price index. And they essentially want to knock out the, you know, because many of the Fed governors already want to knock out food and gas prices and the volatility

there, but other volatile shocks. And so as you get a narrower and narrower portfolio of what's considered in that core price index, and you kind of say, well, that's the stability in the economy. And thus, it could justify from his perspective bringing down rates or having that. The problem is, once you do that, you basically don't realize how these other factors in the economy are driving the overall system up. But I think for this time, it's a way to say, without him saying he's for inflate, you know, for rate cuts, it's a way to get to rate cuts indirectly. I should say that Kevin Warsh is very, very well respected, in my view, across the economic sector. It's important to do that.

I know Democrat appointees, Republican employees, people throughout the Fed system that largely support and endorse his capability and competency. And the kinds of things he's put on the table are not unlike other things. So as we kind of focus in on what he's trying to do this, it's not out of line with other folks. But what he did say is he wants to trim that down even more. And that is something that fits the Trump agenda. I think one of the interesting things, too, to that point, because Kevin Warsh is pretty widely respected, but you hear a lot in the Trump era of people talking about the audience of one and how especially these prominent nominees, these people have to get confirmed, especially on television, they are in many ways performing for the president's approval. And as we talked earlier about the domestic impact of the war in Iran, you hear Donald Trump talk about two primary economic indicators that matter to him every day, which is the stock market and which is interest rates. That's why he focuses so much on who is fed. chair, and that's why he tries to argue that the war isn't having that much of an economic

toll because the stock market might be performing well. He's less focused on kind of the kitchen table economics that impact the vast majority of Americans every single day. But it puts somebody like Kevin Warsh in a tough position because now Trump is going to be expecting him. This basically gives him a glide path to confirmation, and then he's going to have to have that balancing act that Stephen Arthur outlined. Yeah, how long are they going to be friends? It's a good question. Yeah, not that long. And it's a 10-year term, right, for Fed Reserve Chair. So we'll have to if that lasts. One other thing we often heard from the president last year was tariffs, and I wanted give an update on what turned out to be President Trump's unconstitutional tariff plan. About two months

ago, the Supreme Court struck down Trump sweeping tariffs on imports. Now the administration is working to refund more than $166 billion on Monday. The U.S. Customs launched a portal to begin the refunding process. Taylor, how's this going to work? There are so many unknowns. And I, Even in talking to Trump cabinet members, they don't even know. When I interviewed Kelly Loeffler, the small business administrator, we said there are a lot of small businesses who want tariff refunds. Can they get them automatically? And she deferred and she said, I don't know that's going to be up to Customs and Border Protection because it falls under them. So there are a lot of unknowns.

And President Trump has been asked about this. And he's been asked, are you concerned about the potential economic impact if hundreds of billions of dollars have to get sucked out of, you know, the U.S.'s wallet for this? And he basically said, I don't know if that'll have to happen, but if it is, it'll be a blip on the radar. But there are a lot of business owners in the country who are really relying on those to come in because of the impact on tariffs, despite the president's insistence that it's helped people not hurt people. Well, it would be good for the economy for businesses to get more money. But that's the key thing is the payer of the tariffs is businesses, you know, the people who are importing the goods, not the consumers who may have actually borne the cost of the tariffs through higher prices. But Arthur's saying is so important because throughout this, we have a supply chain. At every point in the supply chain, depending you had various people paying and offsetting the tariffs.

You know, I bought table linens. Those table linens went up a lot because terrorists that a small business in Chestertown, Maryland paid. Is that owner, Jen Baker, going to get that tariff money back or is there somewhere along the way? That is, it's a Pandora's Bach, which is going to be, you know, fascinating to watch. But you're not going to get it back. I'm not going to get it back. Right. I was going to say individual consumers are not. This week, President Donald Trump's acting Attorney General signed an order reclassifying state licensed medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The regulation will shift licensed medical marijuana from Schedule 1, which is reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse to the less strictly regulated Schedule 3. The move marks a major policy shift removing barriers to researching the drug's potential use cases.

It's been a big week for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. in a marathon four days of hearing on Capitol Hill over the last week. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answered questions on everything from his vaccine skepticism to whether President Trump's prescription drug plan is actually saving Americans' money. He deflected blame for the largest measles outbreak in decades. Here he is responding to questioning from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, we've done better at controlling the measles outbreak than any kind of. country in the world. We, this is a global outbreak. It started before I came to office. Most of 80% of the children affected are over five years old, which means their decision not to vaccinate predated my appointment. Under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans,

he did reiterate that his department advises all children to get the measles shot. Here he is responding to Democratic Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado. Are you taking that position today? That is not been your position. That's my position. We promote the measles vaccine. At the same time, according to the Washington Post, the CDC blocked a report about vaccine efficacy from being published in the agency's scientific journal. The report found that COVID vaccines reduced the number of hospitalizations among healthy adults this winter by half. Arthur, as we are getting this competing messages here from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the DHS, is he changing his tune on vaccine recommendations? I mean, the way he spoke about

vaccines before he became, the secretary is really stark. He said they're, I can't recall the exact quote, but he basically said, urged people not to get them, not to get them for their kids. I think what's interesting now is that it seems as though the White House does not like having this vaccine questioning element so prominent in the administration. And they've now appointed a new CDC director, Erica Schwartz, with no ties to the anti-vaccine movement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wasn't consulted on the choice. If you remember, he fired the person who'd previously been in that job, who also was really credible on vaccine. So it seems like they're trying to get ahead of him, ahead of his politics, ahead of the midterm elections this year.

You also see, if I could just chime in, his wording was notable in that hearing where he was speaking, not personally advocating for the vaccine, but saying HHS as an institution is, pushing it forward. And that's something I spoke with Dr. Oz, who obviously is a famous doctor, but oversees the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services now, been very pro-vaccine and very pro-publicly encouraging people to get the measles vaccine. And I asked him a few weeks ago, I said, is Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. undermining what you're very clearly mapping out? And he basically was like, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does not speak for the institution as a whole. And he goes, HHS as an agency has been advocating for people to get the vaccine. But the issue is Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has such a big following It's such a big megaphone that, you know, his messaging is the face of it.

That ends up outweighing what the agency as a whole is trying to say. One last congressional story I want to talk about a Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the emergency money the department has been using to pay employee salaries will run out by the first week in May. DHS has been partially shut down since mid-February. Steve, either party look ready to budge here? What are the pass forward for funding? Doesn't look like right now. This looks like a battle between the Senate and the House. Mike Johnson's in a vice.

Mike's got the Freedom Caucus. You know, the Speaker Johnson has Speaker, the Freedom Caucus on one side versus others who want to deal and know that this is pain. But the Republicans are perceived as the ones in control and the Democrats are not going to yield until they have a win. But Mike Johnson continues to pull rabbits out of the hat and he'll continue to do that until the day he doesn't. But I think right now the Republicans are the ones in trouble on this one. Oh, for sure. I mean, the Senate approved funding for all of them. DHS except ICE and Border Patrol.

I said on this show two weeks ago, I thought the House would pick that up, and they didn't. They still might. I feel bad about that. I didn't expect Mike Johnson to go back on what had seemed to be it. I was with you that day, and you said it's a slam dunk. I was going to say. Thank you, Steve. Anyway, they are working on a budget, a special way of funding it that they can do by themselves

in which they might succeed, but there is intra-Republican fighting the pressure on Johnson to just past the Senate one does grow because they have said they, the DHS has said they lose the ability to pay people through the illegal means that the president directed. So stuff is moving there. Let's end on some good news. It's been decades since an elephant calf has been born at Smithsonian's National Zoo until this year. On February 2nd, the Asian elephant Lynn Mai was born here in D.C., becoming the first Asian elephant born at the zoo since 2001. Lin Mai has had some nutritional challenges from being rejected by both her mother and grandmother. But after an innovative fecal transplant from another baby elephant in Columbus and being adopted by an

anti-elephant in the herd, she is making great gains. All right. Just wanted to end on that point note. I'm going. I'm going to go see her. I'm going to come with you. I think she weighs 500 pounds right now. So it's still fairly small. Thanks to Steve Clemens, editor at large at the national interest, Arthur Delaney, senior reporter at Huff Post, and Taylor Popple. National Political Reporter based at the White House for Spectrum News. Thank you for being with us. We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel in all the news from around the globe.

We'll be right back. On Consider This, NPR's afternoon news podcast, we cover everything from politics to the economy, to the world. But every story starts with a question. And NPR, we stand for your right to be curious. to make sense of the biggest story of the day and what it means for you. Follow. Consider this wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. Let's turn to some international news for our weekly news roundup. It's a full house at the WAMU studio today with us.

Robbie Grammer is a national security reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Hi, Robbie. Great to be here. Emily Tamkin, a freelance writer, author, and reporter in contributing columnist at the Forward. her forthcoming book is called Holocaust consciousness. Emily, welcome back. Thank you. And Jack Datch, defense reporter at Politico. Hi, Jack. Good to see you. Good to be here, Naila. Let's start this hour with some back and forth between President Trump and journalists at the Oval Office on Thursday evening. Sir, would you use a nuclear weapon against Iran? You posted on trans-social. No.

We don't need it. Why do I need it? Why would a stupid question like that be asked? Do you put a case? Why would I use a nuclear weapon? We've totally, in a very conventional way, They estimated them without it. No, I wouldn't use it. A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody. Those comments followed a post on truth social, President Trump Thursday morning, saying he's ordered the Navy to, quote, shoot and kill any boat, laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. He followed up by asserting the Strait was sealed up by the U.S. Navy until Iran made a deal. Now those comments came after U.S. forces said they've intercepted two more Iran-linked vessels in the Indian Ocean, boarding one and escorting the other as part of

efforts to enforce their naval blockade. Robbie, it's hard to even ask this question because I know things are changing so rapidly and there's a lot of confusion. But as a Friday morning in Washington, D.C., what do we know about the situation in the straight? Well, in short, a lot of commercial ships are waiting around nervous up at the top of the Strait of Hormuz for all of this to get settled. And for other ships, it's basically a high-stakes game of cat and mouse.

Iran is letting some ships through if they pay basically an extortion fee. But then there's a question of if the U.S. Navy stops them. Now, Iranian flagged vessels at the same time are trying to run this blockade that the U.S. Navy has set up a little bit further back into the Strait of Hormuz going into the Indian Ocean. And so they're trying to run this blockade. They're making it into the Indian Ocean. They are turning off their transponders, to try to sneak through and U.S. Navy destroyers are going around and searching for them. There was one that tried to run the blockade this morning in a Iranian vessel called the Durana

that my colleagues reported on. And it made it close to Western India before a U.S. destroyer intercepted it and said not so fast, come back. And so it's this very weird, high stakes sort of status quo where everyone is just waiting to see what comes next in these negotiations if the U.S. and Iran will. agree on either end to ease their blockade. And so just a reminder to everyone, Iran has believed to have mined parts of the strait and had been demanding payments as much as $2 million to allow ships to pass through on Thursday, Iranian State TV shared video of what they said were Iranian military forces

climbing onto a vessel in the strait and announced the capture of those ships. These vessels have been transferred to the territorial waters of the Islamic Republic of Iran for inspection of their cargo and documents. The IRGC Navy once again emphasized that any action aimed at disrupting the implementation of the laws announced by the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding transit in the Strait of Hormuz as well as activities contrary to safe passage

in this strategic waterway will be continuously monitored by the IRGC Navy and violators will face decisive and lawful action. I'm going to get to the lawful action. a moment, but Emily, the Philippine government confirmed at least 15 seafarers are being held by the IRGC. How has Iran raised the stakes here by capturing foreign flagships? Right. And the Philippines has confirmed that it was 10 on one ship and five on the other, and that both were trying to break through this blockade. And on the one hand, it's the stakes have

been raised tremendously. These are now, there's 15 Filipinos who are being caught for a conflict between Iran and the United States. This is now gone beyond these two countries. This is touching everyone in the region. This is touching the world economy. Of course, the stakes are being raised. And yet, if Iran's goal is to say, look, we're taking, you know, we're taking Filipinos, we're taking people from all over the world. Surely this will be what gets the U.S. to end the war. I'm not sure that that is going to change President Trump's calculations. To the point of legal action, Jack, is this legal? Is this piracy? That's what the Trump administration wants to call it. Defense.

Secretary Pete Hegseth was at the podium this morning and said the IRGC has basically been reduced to a gang of pirates with a flag. So it may look like piracy, it may walk like piracy, may quack like piracy. But by the international legal definition, not strictly speaking, these are state actors doing this, not non-state actors. Piracy would more clearly refer to non-state actors. The other thing, though, is this has created a tit for tat with the United States because on Thursday we saw the U.S. seizing, boarding more vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. So this seems to intensify, at least in the interim, this fight over control of the strait. But to be clear, whether we're calling it piracy or not, international law does not allow for countries to impose fines or fees to go through something like the Strait.

That's right. Of course, the Iranians will try and justify this based on alleged violations of sanctions. They can make other justifications to try and hold up to the legal. bar, but strictly speaking, yes, this looks like an unsanctioned action by a state actor. Robbie, let's look at the ceasefire, the deal in the talks or the lack of any of the above. The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to arrive in Islamabad Friday night for more talks. But this is sort of turned into the ultimate game of chicken. Earlier this week, the administration extended the U.S. ceasefire with Iran at the request of the Pakistani prime minister until Tehran presents a, quote, unified proposal for

talks. So now what? I mean, everyone's in holding pattern. So, yeah, like you said, Iran's foreign minister is heading to Pakistan and then Russia and Oman. And the Pakistanis who have been trying to mediate these talks between the U.S. and Iran are hopeful that they can find some sort of way to punch through this impasse between the Iranian side and the American side. And both sides right now are waiting for the other side to blink. Now, when you talk to Trump administration officials, you know, they'll say we completely devastated Iran's military. Its economy was already teetering on the brink before the war. Its leadership was taken out by success of Israeli strikes, and this blockade is really going to ratchet up economic pressure on them, block their main source

of revenue, their oil and gas. So basically, we can just wait it out and wait and see until Iran is finally ready to come back to the table. The flip side here is Iran has not, despite this war, despite this devastating war, has not ceded any of its strategic objectives, and that is to retain the capacity to one day build a nuclear bomb and to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. And so the talks right now are in stasis. Both sides are circling each other, waiting for the other to flinch. And as Emily and Jack pointed out, everyone else, the world, the global energy markets, these poor maritime, these poor people on these commercial ships, they are all caught. in the middle waiting for the standoff to end.

I mean, certainly, Robbie, the world economy has been battered over the past eight weeks. Some analysts have called it the worst crisis to hit the global energy market in history. But Iran's economy is also taking a meeting. Here's the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking to journalists on Wednesday. Operation Economic Fury continues. And the effective and successful naval blockade continues as well of ships and vessels that are moving to and from Iranian port. ports, we are completely strangling their economy through this blockade. They're losing $500 million a day. The Karg Island is completely full. They can't move oil in and out. They can't even pay

their own people as a result of this economic leverage that President Trump has inflicted over them. Emily, what is the state of Iran's economy right now? It's horrendous. The IMF has said that they believe that Iran's economy is going to shrink by 6.1% this year. Inflation is 68.9%. People can't, you know, that's, I just want to drive home that this is touching the most basic and immediate products that people need. It's not, it's Operation Economic Fury means that when people try to feed their families, they're struggling. But the idea that that economic leverage yet, it's, and the spokesperson is right, insofar as it's hurting the economy and it's hurting people who need to live, but leverage to do what,

right? If the point is, you know, to get Iran to say, okay, our economy is so bad we concede, that has not yet happened. And in fact, I think one thing that the White House might want to remember is that unlike the United States, Iran does not have midterm elections this year, right? So we're sort of in this game of chicken or seeing who can cry uncle first, whose people can be, can be hurt more, be devastated more economically to get their government to shift. And I do think that maybe that White House statement leaves out that the U.S. government is facing domestic political pressures that are unique to our system that Iran's are not facing.

Robbie, also I want to just ask about the pressures in the region, particularly when we think about Gulf countries and their relationships with Tehran. Where do you see that going? Yeah. I mean, before the war, a lot of Gulf countries, countries in the region, sought to come to some form of uneasy detente with Iran, saying we don't like you, we don't trust you. You're a threat, but let's just learn to live together uneasily and, you know, and that's it. And then the war starts. And many administration officials here expected Iran to pubble, the U.S. bases in the region are Israel. But Iran went so much further. And it launched massive salvos of missile and drone strikes at the UAE, at Bahrain, at Qatar, at Saudi Arabia, Iraq, even Oman. And Oman has sort of sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East. It tried hard to avert a war to step in on Iran's behalf. And so all of these Gulf states, they're angry at the United States. They're angry at the United States.

States, but they're even more angry at Iran for how Iran has dragged them into this war. One of Tehran's primary war tactics has been economic damage to the energy infrastructure of its neighbors. Some reporting suggests that 83% of its total missile and drone strikes were levied at Gulf neighbors, the majority at the UAE. Jack, the longer this goes on, as we look at all of these Gulf countries, are U.S. security guarantees going to be worth anything? I think that's a million dollar question here, because the U.S. is still the only game. in town when it comes to great power security in the Gulf. That's, you know, when you think of heavy metal in the strait, when you think of sailors at sea. The Chinese and the Russians have

provided some boutique support when it comes to weapons to targeting capabilities, but they don't really provide that same support. The problem is this isn't really the era of the Carter doctrine that lasted from the 1980s into the 2010s. Now you have a situation where you do have a U.S. Navy blockade, but you have an unpredictable U.S. president. You have a U.S. magazine. that's quite depleted. So Gulf country is going to have trouble getting their air defenses back into shape. So it does mean a lot. They are the only game in town. They're valuable. But it appears like with any Donald Trump relationship, they're conditional. This week, President Trump said he was not influenced by Israel to attack Iran.

Emily, as we're nearly nine weeks in, where are we seeing Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump still aligned? Where are they diverging? Okay, we should first say that while I'm glad to hear the president remember that as president and commander-in-chief, he's ultimately accountable for this war. I think it's to say that you weren't influenced by the leader of the country you went to war with strikes me as just a bizarre thing to say. But be that as it may, look, Trump has repeatedly said, let's get this done quickly, let's wrap this up, you know, we're crushing it, we're killing it, we're, you know, those are not Benjamin Netanyahu's goals. Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed for a war, much like this for a long time, has said that it's central to Israel's security. And, you know, I mentioned elections earlier.

Israel too has upcoming elections, and Benjamin Netanyahu has different political considerations than Trump. Most Americans do not want this war. It is not popular with the United States. And most Americans don't understand why we're in this war. That's not true in Israel, right? This was a very popular, at least at the very beginning was a very popular war, and that may wane further as it goes along. And as the goals become increasingly unclear, but for his own coalition, for his own domestic support, you know, Israel has a different set of political considerations in the United States does. So while they're aligned, while they were aligned on the decision to do this and while they, I think, agree that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, raising the question of why Trump and Trump 1.0 pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, but be that as it may, whether it's good that this war continues, I think, is a big area of divergence. Let's talk about Iran. The New York Times reports that Iran's supreme leader, Mosthaba Khomeini, is facing critical medical conditions after surviving a bomb attack that's left him awaiting a process.

leg and facial plastic surgery. He has not been seen or heard from since being appointed in March. He was injured an attack that killed his father, the Ayatollah Khomeini, on February 28th. Robbie, what did we learn from this reporting on Moshaba Ali Khamenei, his condition, his care? Well, Machava is in hiding. He's isolated. And it's not clear what say he has over the trajectory of the Iranian government. reportedly people in the Iranian government are scared to go to him, scared that Israel could trace through them his location and try to take him out as well. And so messages are being passed to and from him, handwritten notes reportedly through a chain of different messengers,

where they will send a message through these handwritten notes to him, and he will reply and send these messages back. Suffice to say, not a very efficient way to run a government, let alone a government at war, let alone a government doing these negotiations. And the point is, you know, he's isolated. He hasn't been seen. He's severely injured. Okay. But I think the big takeaway here is what does this mean for the U.S. negotiations with Iran? When Trump officials sit across from Iranian negotiators, are those negotiators speaking for Iran? And nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes, if there is a weak Ayatollah who's injured in

isolated. What does that mean for all of the different factions in the Iranian regime, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the most powerful military faction in the country? Is it taking more power? Is there any sort of balance between that and sort of the political establishment? And so when they negotiate, is there in fighting that could ultimately scuttle a deal that the United States brokers with Iran if and when one comes? Jack, can you break this down a little bit for us if we have an Ayatollah who is medically, fragile. Who is in charge? And is there a divide between the hardliners in the country? Well, it seems like senior commanders of the guards, as Robbie said, councils of elders are

helping to make decisions. And that's the fascinating thing, right? Is if you have a position where you have a Supreme Leader that's wounded, that's injured, that perhaps doesn't have full command and control of his military, you have a situation where the military then can delegate and make decisions at a very low level and perhaps interrupt things. I mean, one of the fears that I hear constantly from industry, from troops in the region, is the fear of Iranian vessels, drone vessels, coming in, being commanded at a much lower level than the Supreme Leader at different ranks of the IRGC. And you have to remember the IRGC is a body, too, that controls 25 to 50 percent of the Iranian economy. So a huge player here.

Iran's civilian institutions haven't disappeared. So, Robbie, if we think about the president, see the foreign ministry, other parts of the Iranian state are active, but how have we seen their roles redefined? Well, that's an important factor. And it's one of the reasons that this war has become so difficult. This is not a situation like a Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Gaddafi in Libya or even a Maduro in Venezuela, where the entire state rests on one person on one authority. The power is still divided into all of these factions. And Matrava's father, the late commanding before he was killed, seemed to do a good job of balancing all these factions against each other, retaining ultimate authority. And it's an open-ended question right now of what his son, his successor,

can do to balance these factions or if the IRGC will just take power. And another concern here is the Israeli strikes, along with the U.S. strikes, took out a lot of IRGC leadership. And what that means is that these lower level IRGC commanders have come up through the ranks of battlefield promotions as their bosses get taken out and strikes. And the tendency that we seem to see, according to U.S. officials, other officials in the region who track this closely, are that they are more radicalized. They're more hardline. They're less experienced. And you just don't know what that means. It turns this massive, powerful institution in Iran into a big wildcard against the backdrop of this war and these negotiations.

And Emily, what Robbie's describing this long-use decapitation strategy that Israel is used, the U.S. has used. What are the, how else is this complicating an off-ram here? It's sort of like in the same way that, you know, the fact that the U.S. has been negotiating with Iran and multiple times now decided to strike Iran, that does not help further negotiations. Similarly, if you have assassinated, decapitated the people who are in charge, the people who are one rung down, who are now in those roles, just watch this. And so the idea that they're going to come up and be, you know, Western-friendly reformers, it just just is, I mean, first of all, it's just not what happens historically. And also just think, if you think about it logically, right, in the same way that striking jury negotiations doesn't encourage negotiations,

people who get promotions by watching their bosses and predecessors get killed are not going to be warmer toward Israel or the United States. And this idea that by quote-unquote decapitating them, they would be overthrown, it just hasn't happened, right? And so if the intended policy is to take them out and so, you know, they are overthrown and a new Iran is born, that's not happening. And instead, what is happening is people who are part of the system are being hardened by this, watching this, observing this, being shaped by it, and then coming to power. So it makes negotiations and just the future of Iran, Israel, U.S. relations that much more difficult. I want to ask about the messaging that's happening for the war online. In early March a week after the first U.S. Israeli strikes on Iran, the White House posted a video of real American attacks mixed with clips from popular movies, TV, serios, video games, on a May. Within hours, Iran and its sympathizers responded by flooding social media with now viral video clips, report.

reportedly created by teams of Iranians depicting everyone from Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Satan, Benjamin Netanyahu, others as Lego figurines. This is a word. It's called sloppaganda. The videos often contain disinformation and anti-Semitic tropes. But here's the thing they don't look or feel like state propaganda. They're, I want to just ask you all what you make of the social media machine. Iran has managed to sort of bottle the internet zeitgeist to being fast and funny. It's sort of like designed to go viral. It's kind of cool, which is a crazy thing to say about Iranian propaganda. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, both countries here are trying to gain the upper hand of this information more of who can meme better. And there's something to the messaging, especially on the U.S. side, while Trump is on the back foot, you know, with some factions of his own Republican Party saying, wait a second, we voted for you explicitly to not get embroiled in another war in the war. the Middle East. And so sometimes the memeification of information warfare here, it does serve, it does serve a good purpose. It's obvious, but it should be said that, you know, the regime producing these videos, the sloppaganda, on one level, it's funny, it's weird, it's, it's quirky. On another level, this is still a regime that has wholesale slaughtered tens of thousands of

protesters, correct. Hanging women who are trying to fight for basic rights. in their country. And so it's, it's, the way that it's, it's funny and, and quirky is almost more pernicious and, uh, when, when you think about the regime behind it all. It's also sort of a response to how Trump has, has communicated for years now, right? Sharing memes found on Reddit and, and wherever else of him tackling CNN as a wrestler or, you know, showing, putting out racist cartoons about the Obama's. And, um, I was just thinking as, as Robbie said, like, who can meme better? Um, there is something fundamental. unsurious about that sentence.

I don't, I mean, and that's not Robbie's fault. That's the reality of what's happening here. Thousands of people are dying and people are honing their meme skills. And people I include the U.S. administration in that. And so I just, I think, not to get on my high horse here, but I do sort of think it shows a fundamental disregard of human life from both Iranian leadership and our own leadership. Yeah, the administration in the early days of the war, was very, very captivated by their traffic numbers on some of these memes, comparing the war to

Grand Theft Auto to tackles in football, some of them hitting over three billion impressions is what the White House bragged to us. I think there's sort of a back and forth, right? I mean, you see as tension boils up in Washington, too, when we saw Joe Kent resign over the war, the Iranians took advantage of that. The Iranians have gone out with the Lego Pete Hegseth and said, what do you do with the drunken Pete Hegseth? Seth. So there's very much this desire by the Iranians to play into this idea that there's chaos between the U.S. and their allies and to tap into that. The Financial Times is reporting that a top envoy to President Trump has asked FIFA to replace Iran with

Italy in the upcoming World Cup. U.S. Special Envoy Paolo Zambole suggested the swap to FIFA's president and Trump to repair ties between Trump and Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. The two are said to have fallen out after the president attacked Pope Leo over the president. the Iran war, the Italian sports minister rejected the idea. The impact of Iran's war is also playing out across multiple fronts in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia says it's faced nearly a thousand drone attacks in recent weeks, many of which it believes to be launched by Iran-backed militias from inside Iraq. Some of these strikes targeted critical oil infrastructure, including a major refinery on the Red Sea. Jack, what does this war within a war tell us about how the conflict is

spreading across the region. I think you see the Saudis kind of taking the Americans place in what had been sort of a sub-conventional war in Iraq and Syria. They're helping to deal with Iran-aligned militias on Iraqi soil, so that's very much within their interests, trying to protect their energy interests. And of course, the Saudis have gotten a much more close relationship with the Iraqi government in recent years. So I don't think we're expecting to see tanks cross borders, to see a major conventional fight here. But it shows the degree to which Saudi Arabia also kind of has to mow the grass to use the Israeli term of art in the region in their estimation.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, a ceasefire is holding between Israel and Hezbollah, but just barely. Ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon yesterday here in Washington, extended the ceasefire due to expire Sunday. Another three weeks. Here's President Trump yesterday. If you look at Hezbollah, that's where... everybody seems to be united against them. So they are both very united in that way.

I think there's a very good chance of having peace. I think it should be an easy one. Relative to some of the things we're working on, it should be an easy one. But it's been so many years because nobody focused on it. These are the first direct talks between the two nations and decades. The president said the two leaders would be meeting in the coming weeks. It's worth noting it's illegal under Lebanese law for leadership to engage with Israel,

something the president commented he learned on Thursday. We got this question from Kevin listening in Switzerland. I hear announcements of an additional ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, but given that this does not include Hezbollah, what meaning does it have and what would Israel expect from the Lebanese government during this ceasefire? Was Lebanon ever returning fire into Israel? Is Lebanon implicitly accepting responsibility for Hezbollah's actions by signing a ceasefire?

Are they promising they could put a stop to Hezbollah? I think Kevin's really put his finger on exactly what the issue is, which is that it's not just Israel, Lebanon. It's Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah. And though the president thinks this will be an easy one and everyone is an agreement, that is not actually, strictly speaking, true. Because there are many in Lebanon who are saying, actually, if Hezbollah disarms, that's the last protection that we have really is gone. Whereas Israel says they've been shooting rockets into our country. They started up again after the Iran war, after Israel and the U.S. started this war with Iran. You know, it's not safe, especially in the north.

And so, and we should say that even with the ceasefire, there have been exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah. You know, how much, exactly how much these talks are able to, what is the word, contrain or restrain, Hezbollah is, I think, to be seen. But for now, there is this three-week additional ceasefire. Do you want to add anything there, Jack? No, I mean, it's been interesting to see the degree to which the Israelis have basically just disregarded Lebanon's government throughout this entire process. They've basically said, we're not going to deal with you until we can find someone who can deal with Hezbollah, but the people who can do with Hezbollah and Israel's estimation are the Israelis. Emily, as we were talking about this fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, Israel is still maintaining what it calls a security zone inside southern Lebanon. what does that tell us about Israel's long-term strategy?

So what Israel says is that, and this is, we should say, this is sort of a return to form in some ways because they had a similar buffer zone from 82 to 2000. So now here we are 26 years later with this buffer zone that they say is to protect Israelis from rockets from Hezbollah coming in to the north of the country. However, we should say that there are some in the Israeli ultra-nationalist right who have been pretty plain about the fact that they want to annex this part of the country.

We should also say that a million people in Lebanon have been displaced. And further, I was saying earlier that the U.S. wants to wrap this up quickly. Israel does not want that. Obviously, having a security zone within another country does not point to, yes, yes, we're going to wrap this up and be done right away. So let me put this to all of you. When we're putting all of this together, when we're talking about our fragile season, fire in Lebanon. Previously, we were discussing the proxy attacks in the Gulf. What did you all see region-wide this week that we should be paying attention to? Robbie? I think the first thing is

how the Lebanon talks will affect U.S. Iran talks. So Iran has said we don't want to do any serious talks, any negotiation, unless Israel halts its hostilities in Lebanon and withdraws back to its border. The American side, meanwhile, is saying these two talks are happening in parallel, but we are not connecting them. Because doing so would basically give an acknowledgement that Iran has, say, over sovereign Lebanese issues. Now, the Americans and Israelis here say after years of Hezbollah being battered by Israeli strikes following the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, Lebanon, the Lebanese government has this historic opportunity to finally rest Hezbollah from its governance structure. from southern Lebanon. And they're saying, Lebanon, we want you to finally take control and finally confront Hezbollah.

The flip side is Lebanon, first of all, is in the Lebanese government's in a very precarious position in large part because of the Israeli strikes. And there is a real fear that, A, the Lebanese army is too weak to confront Hezbollah directly. And B, would a confrontation from a Hezbollah spiral in a way out of control into what's seen as a confrontation with Lebanon's entire Shia community.

I'm going to point to another subplot from this week, which is that there were Israeli soldiers who desecrated a statue of Jesus, and there was global outreach, global outrage, excuse me, these soldiers were disciplined. The soldiers who stood around and did nothing, they're going to be spoken to. I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that there is this growing,

growing hostility to Christianity in some parts of the Israeli Jewish population. This is a big problem for the Israeli government because Israeli officials, by their own admission, four years now have said, let's not worry in terms of foreign policy about these pesky, whiny, liberal American Jews. We're going to be with the evangelicals. So obviously, if now part of your population is being outwardly aggressive toward Christianity, that's a problem. Also a problem because there's this growing tendency on the U.S. political right to be sort of, oh, I'm just asking questions about Jewish control of our foreign policy, and that this does not help that. It also was interesting to me, I want to lift up a piece by a Palestinian

Christian that Arets published that sort of said, why is there more global outreach about a statue of Jesus than about the hundreds, thousands of people who are being killed, you know, the school children, the people displaced, et cetera. Now, I think the reasons what I just pointed to, which is that there are sort of real religio-politique questions and issues tied up in this desecration. But I just think it's also worth saying what the IDF has apologized for and what is not apologized for. One thing that's been interesting is China's tepid role, but taking a more active hand in diplomacy this week.

Xi Jinping was calling up Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, sort of pushing the line of that they want talks. They're not taking any hand in encouraging talks themselves. and they seem very content to try and keep this summit date with Donald Trump open in May where they can talk trade. They can talk Taiwan. A whole number of issues will be on the table. But you see China, or you see China, rather, wanting to step into the region in a big way and yet also do it in a velvet glove. Right. Robbie, I just want to ask about, remind everybody that China was pushing on Iran to accept the initial ceasefire ahead of the deadline in early April. How have we seen the Chinese government conducting this diploma?

Well, there's two fronts here. The first is China wants the straight reopened. It's bad for business for this shock in the global energy market, especially given how much gas and oil from the global market, China hoover's up. And they want that. The second is there is a bit of a Machiavellian twist here. China, having the United States sucked back into a massive costly conflict in the Middle East, where the United States is burning through so many high-end munitions is not bad for Beijing in the long run. And so they're balancing these two things, even if they're not saying publicly, of look, we want the straight reopened. We want the oil and gas taps turn back on. We need those. And also, you know, if the United States is dragged into another war, our arch geopolitical rival, if it burns up resources, time, political capital, munitions, you know, you have to divert a lot of your military assets. from the Indo-Pacific where we're confronting some American allies, why are we going to stop you here?

Jack, we also saw a lot of stories this week about China's currency and how that's China's economy and how they're being affected by the use of its currency during this conflict. What's notable about that? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, right? It seems like the one in recent years has shaken off the stigma of sort of being a back-basement currency that's only available for pariah states. and now is becoming more of a currency of choice. The Chinese are trying to float that here. Of course, it's not a currency like the dollar that can float freely and is involved in the

international currency market in the same way. But you see over the past few years trade in the lawn rising. That may be set to continue after this goes on. You know, often in the international roundup, we ask about what's behind the actions of China's government, what Chinese President Xi Jinping wants. Do we know what his government wants in terms of this war? with Iran? I mean, I think I would just go back to what I originally said. They want some form of stability here. And they also won't mind if the United States burns up a lot of its credibility

and its resources in the Middle East. I think the, you know, if people were waiting for China, this superpower to come barreling in and say, we are going to conduct great power diplomacy, that is not something that's happening. This is a diplomatic quagmire that China is very very happy to not touch with the 10-foot pole here. Yeah, I mean, China's game in the region is predominantly economics. So Robbie Flagg the big point, which is oil and gas supplies. They want that to continue flowing. But I think it shows the degree to which China's reticent to bring big power to bear.

China has a carrier program ever since the financial crisis in 2008. China has the biggest fleet in the world by far. They're not making a difference here. And that's a notable statement. I want to just quick stop in Pakistan. The country is currently at the heart of negotiations over the Iran War, paused a $1.5 billion sale of weapons to Sudan on Monday. That's after Saudi Arabia reportedly said it would not finance the weapons sale. Sudan's in the fourth year of a devastating war between the military and a paramilitary group. This led to famine, displaced 13 million people, killed at least 59,000, especially in the Darfur region. Jack, what's behind this Pakistani-South? Saudi weapons deal to Sudan? Well, I know Robbie's the expert on Sudan, so I'll leave some for him. But it seems like this was something that was funded largely by Saudi.

They decided to pull back funding for this. And it goes to show kind of Saudi Arabia's recalibration of their foreign policy role. They were more interested in sort of further abroad proxy conflicts in Sudan, in Yemen. Now it seems like they're pulling back and focusing more on the region. And the campaign in Iraq is evidence of that. Let's go to Ukraine now in its fifth year fighting Russia's full-scale invasion. Emily, on Thursday, the European Union approved a $106 billion loan to keep Ukraine's government afloat through 2027. That had been held up for months.

So what led to this breakthrough? Okay. So there's the short and the slightly longer. The short version is that Hungary and Slovakia had had had had it on pause because they were not getting their Russian oil through the Drujuba pipeline. Ironically, Drusba means friendship, but it was causing animosity here. Ukraine said it was the Russians who damaged that pipeline. The Hungarian said, you're delaying repairs on purpose. Finally, this week, oil hit.

And so we're all happy and working together again. The slightly longer version is that Hungary had been really – sorry, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, had been using Ukraine to try to get people out to the polls to vote for him in his reelection, saying, I'm the only thing standing between you and Ukraine taking advantage of you and the EU dragging us into war, et cetera, et cetera. He lost, right? So I think we'll be seeing a lot less of that out of Hungary. And a question is whether we will continue to see it from Robert Fitsa, the Slovak Prime Minister.

So as you're mentioning, this is involving Russian oil again flowing to Hungary and Slovakia. At the same time, we saw the EU announcing new sanctions on Russia. So what is the EU doing to counteract Russia as it continues to help Ukraine? In addition to this loan, there's also a new tranche of sanctions, including on Russian, sorry, on Russian ghost fleets or phantom fleets, which are thought to be involved in helping the Russian energy sector and on other entities as well. Now, you might say, doesn't it undercut that cause to have two EU countries continue to rely on Russian energy? And to that, the answer is, yes, that it's a sticking point between the EU and Hungary and Slovakia and Ukraine. Before we leave Europe,

some historic news from the UK, children in Britain who are 17 or younger or anyone born in the future will never be able to legally buy cigarettes after lawmakers approved new, strict restrictions on smoking this week. Here's the British Health Minister addressing Parliament. It is a landmark bill, my lords. It will create a smoke-free generation. It is, in fact, the biggest public health intervention in a generation. And I can assure all noble lords, it will save lives.

The tobacco and vapes bill raises the legal age for buying tobacco by one year, every year. Starting with people born on or after January 1, 2009, meaning a tobacco. affected age groups face a lifetime ban. The legislation now goes to the king for a ceremonial sign off before taking effect. Before we go, I want to look ahead to what's in your reporter's notebook, what you're watching for this week. But I did want to ask what you all are making of this reporting about an email from the Pentagon outlining options for the U.S. to punish NATO allies that believed failed to support them during the Iran war. Robbie? Yeah, I mean, the Trump administration is livid at NATO allies.

not stepping up to help the Iran war. NATO allies are countering, well, you know, you spent the past year really bashing us, casting doubt over the alliance. Oh, and by the way, you didn't warn us in advance that you were going to war. So how were we able to help from day one? And so some of the options on the table reportedly, as Reuters reported, is temporarily pausing or suspending Spain's membership from NATO, which is not as international on NATO law goes, legally viable option, punishing other NATO countries looking at questioning their holdings over sort of former colonial states. The big example is the Falkland Islands within the UK. So it just goes to show how fuming mad Trump remains at NATO for not stepping up to help his blockade. At the same time,

NATO allies are talking about forming a coalition to help escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, but only after the conflict has ended. Jack, we also got this email from J.M. in Vermont. Maybe you can answer this. Can your gas comment on the current reporting on the Iran Wars depletion of U.S. military arms, particularly on what this conflict means for U.S. vulnerabilities with Russia and China and whether there's a huge bill coming that will land on Americans? Yeah, I mean, I think this has come up earlier in the program, but you see in the first days of the conflict, Tomahawk land attack missiles were a big use case that were fired. Those would be key probably for land targets in a China campaign around Taiwan. The journal, obviously,

has great reporting this week about the depletion of stockpiles that this is caused and how it could affect other war plans. But it'll have broad scale effect because this is all the same pool of weapons, right? And it's going to take the U.S. manufacturing industry, the arms industry, one to two years to ramp up to full capacity, not to mention to replace all of these depleted munitions. Air defense is another huge one. The Ukrainians desperately needed to. Emily, I'll let you have the last word as we're almost out of time here. But just what we missed, to what you're watching, which we miss talking about this week, which you're watching for next week, either one?

Well, one big story is that voting is underway in West Bengal. This is the fourth most populous state in India. And it's one that I encourage people to pay attention to because last time and also this time, the Narendra Modi and the BJP have really looked to it to say, like, we can finally make inroads here, and that will mean something to our political project. Mumta, who runs West Bengal and the TMC, are saying, I don't actually think so. I don't think that's going to happen. So we will find out, I believe, May 4th, but voting is under right now.

So pay attention to that, too. All right, and we'll talk about it when it happens on the roundup. Thanks so much to our panelists today. Emily Tamkin, freelance writer and reporter in contributing columnist at The Forward. She's the author of The Influence of Soros and Bad Jews and a forthcoming book called Holocaust Consciousness. Jack Datch, defense reporter at Politico, and Robbie Grammer, National Security Reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor.

Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexander Bouti is our senior supervising producer, Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand, and Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional on-demand support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Naila Boodoo. This is 1A.

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