The News Roundup For March 27, 2026

25:47When asked on Thursday why he chose to vote by mail, here's how the president responded. Because I'm president of the United States, and because of the fact that I'm president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine. You were on Tom H, sir, the last few weekends. That's right. And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things. But, you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots. You do know that, right?

26:20Steve, how is the president trying to reconcile his efforts to eliminate mail-in voting due to fraud and the fact that he himself there was explaining that he's voting by mail? I think the president is able to manage or manages a lot of contradictions in himself. And I think it's very clear. I think when the reporter followed up and asked, hey, you were down in Palm Beach, as were other of his family members, there's obviously a bit of a contradiction in the fact that he's used this before and this time using mail-in ballots. People find it a way to be engaged in the political process. And he just kind of ran over the question and said, because I'm president of the United States.

26:58So there is no real answer. And we don't know how President Trump necessarily squares the circle here because he's contradicting himself. We would never say that that's totally hypocritical. Let's talk about that special election. Despite Trump's January endorsement of the contender, the Republican contender John Maples, Democrat political newcomer Emily Gregory flipped that seat and will represent Palm Beach in the Florida State House. President Trump won that district by 11 points in the 2024 presidential election, Wendy. What does Gregory's win reveal about shifts in the electorate over the last two years?

27:34Well, we'll have to see if President Trump's vote was counted. If it wasn't, we're guessing he voted for John Maples, who he endorsed in the race. It certainly made Democrats giddy. I mean, first, there is just another Democratic win in a special election, which Democrats have, I believe—please, Arthur, correct me if I'm wrong—swept every special election that has happened pretty much this year. And so that makes them giddy and very, very happy. This is a state legislative seat. Of course, it is right in Trump's neighborhood. And so we'll see if that really has national implications. It's like the 30th one that Democrats have flipped.

28:16Republicans have flipped none. So it tells the story of a possible blue whip. Absolutely. More of the week's news and your questions to come in just a moment.

28:46This message comes from Carvana, who makes buying and financing your next car easy. Thousands of vehicles, terms up front, and 100 % online. Even get it delivered to your door. Buy your car the easy way with Carvana. Delivery fee may apply. This is Ira Glass of This American Life. Do you know our show? Okay, well, either way, I'm going to tell you about it. We make stories that hopefully pull you in at the beginning with funny moments and feelings and people in surprising situations, and then you just want to find out what is going to happen and cannot stop listening. That's right. I'm talking about stories that make you miss appointments.

29:23This is American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get back to the roundup with this message from Mary in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who says, I just want to add that TSA officers are not the only people going without pay right now. DHS is a big agency. Even when this is resolved, people in CBP and ICE will not be getting paid, right, Wendy? Not quite. CBP and ICE were already getting paid through the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax bill that Trump and the Republicans in Congress passed earlier this year. So their salaries are coming out of that for now. But the listener is right in that it's not just TSA.

30:06It's FEMA. It's Homeland Security Investigations. It's a number of agencies in this massive, sprawling bureaucracy that is DHS. And Jim from Omaha asks, won't the TSA delays affect Congress trying to get home in return? Also, a good reason to resolve the problem. Arthur, it was interesting to see Delta Airlines this week saying they're shutting down some special services that are provided for Congress members. But I learned this week that they have special security lines Congress members used to have to go through. I believe they have their own little parking lot at the airport, and I know that they get free pre-check.

30:44But I do think that, like I was saying earlier, the prospect of flying home was making them antsy, and maybe not just because they wanted to leave Washington, but they didn't want to show their faces in the airport. Let's move to a landmark verdict against big tech this week in a court in L.A. On Wednesday, a jury found that Meta and YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to mental health distress. Here's Mark Lanier, the lead attorney in the case against Meta and YouTube, talking to Chris Cuomo on his program News Nation celebrating the victory. And that's the sad part is they targeted them, Chris.

31:21They didn't just say, hey, let's put an app out there. It would be like tobacco with Joe Camel saying, go out there and start smoking as a kid. it's a really cool thing to do. These companies hired neuroscientists to figure out how the teen brain works so that they could increase viewership with these teen brains. Meta will be forced to pay$4.2 million in damages. YouTube, 1.8 million drops in the bucket for companies like Meta and Alphabet. YouTube's parent company, whose revenue last year totaled nearly$403 billion. Arthur, why are we hearing so many say, though, that this is Big Tech's Big Tobacco moment?

32:03Well, these big cases in California and New Mexico are just two of dozens of lawsuits that are pending, that are similar, that show through investigations and through other stuff in the public record that these websites are basically like digital Jeffrey free Epsteins, and they funnel harmful content to children. They connect people who shouldn't be connected. And the victories show how you can win. So there's going to be more and more cases, potentially mass settlements, potentially Congress stepping in. I don't know if lawmakers at this point would want to try to preempt the state laws that are being used in these cases, but there are a bunch of bills that would do so that have a lot of support and other bills that do not, that would institute federal laws to clamp down on it.

32:52So basically, these social media apps are going to have to change because what they're doing is not working. It's getting them sued and it's costing them money. Drop in the bucket for now, but it's going to keep happening. The same day the jury in LA handed down their verdict, back in Washington, the Trump administration named Silicon Valley leaders to a White House advisory panel on science and technology that includes Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, also Trump allies Larry Ellison of Oracle, Mark Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Steve, what kind of issues is this group expected to address?

33:23Yeah, this is this PCAST group, which is originally, you know, set up by Franklin Roosevelt years ago, and it's always been a powerful committee, but it's had a diverse set of advisors. You know, they're going to be focusing on AI innovation and the national agenda there that's often framed as, you know, an existential race with China, how to reduce regulation, how to get companies to, you know, increase the uptake of AI tools. Looking at the national security side of this, they've kind of also built into this, how do they not fall into censorship traps as they see them or what they, what the administration calls, you know, woke legal frames for a lot of this.

34:00What's really interesting is you went through a number of the people that are, you know, they're Lisa Su, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell. It's very much an industry group that's largely on the same page with each other. Typically, when you have something that's so transformative as AI, you want society's advocates as well, those that are worried with child welfare, those in education, those that may represent labor. But this is a very, very narrow cast range of appointees to PCAST that are gonna be wrestling through these largely tech issues, but not with any of the other kinds of, what are the impacts of this?

34:37What are the guardrail concerns that we need to have as AI, the AI tsunami, kind of increasingly hits the country? We have a question from Janelle about the settlement. Arthur, can I direct this to you? Janelle is asking, where does that settlement go? Does it go to consumers, to government agencies? There's no mass settlement. I'm sorry. That's something that could potentially happen if these cases— Because this was an individual. There's an individual in California and the state of New Mexico sued after doing their own investigation, and they got a several hundred million dollar verdict. And if the state of New Mexico gets that, where does that go?

35:15Well, I am not sure. I believe it goes to the state of New Mexico or to the victims, but honestly, I don't know. It's going to be appealed. Right. And this could wind up at the Supreme Court. Right, right. Let's talk about the extreme weather we've seen lately. while Hawaii has been hit by catastrophic flooding after several days of back-to-back storms. A record-breaking heat wave expands across large swaths of the U.S. First, Hawaii. Drainage systems are overwhelmed as storms dump five to more than 30 inches of rain. Governor Josh Green told Hawaii News Now on Sunday that the storm has already cost more than a billion dollars in damages.

35:50Back on the mainland in March, in mid-March, a heat dome settled over the southwestern U.S. It brought summer-like temperatures averaging about 30 degrees above normal, shattering heat records in places like Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix. This week, it expanded into the Midwest and Plains. Meteorologists say this may end up being one of the most expansive heat waves in American history. Meanwhile, here in D.C., we're enjoying the peak full bloom of the cherry blossoms. It's the seventh year in a row that the beautiful blossoms have bloomed earlier than normal, despite the colder than usual Washington winter.

36:24I've been enjoying getting out and seeing them. They're beautiful. They look great. Really gorgeous. Absolutely. It's a good reason to come to Washington, D.C. Now, we turn to renewed allegations about President Trump's handling of classified documents that were stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says he obtained a damning memo summarizing Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the case against Trump, a reminder that earlier this year the case was dismissed and a judge blocked the release of the Special Counsel's final report.

37:01Wendy, what's in this memo? Well, first, one of the things that Congressman Jamie Raskin is talking about is that the fact that he has the memo itself may violate Judge Eileen Cannon's order. What's in the memo is evidence that Donald Trump—this is the case about them finding classified documents or asking if he had classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago home. He said no. The archives said yes. They went back and forth. This was really the clearest cut case against Donald Trump of any of them because there was a paper trail and the documents were found. This memo, however, says that some of those documents were so secret that one of them had been seen only by six people in the United States government.

37:47That is incredibly, incredibly secret. And it also showed that he was showing a classified map to people on his plane on the way to his golf club in New Jersey. And Jack Smith said at one point on the document that only six people had seen, he said to his prosecutors, that one we're going to need back. So there was just this— Do we know how Jamie Raskin got this document? Arthur. So he said that apparently the Justice Department provided it to the Judiciary Committee by mistake. So the Justice Department has been giving Republicans on Capitol Hill bits and pieces of Jack Smith's investigation in order for them to say that he had done things wrong or done things corrupt.

38:39You may have heard about the targeting of members' phone calls in a different case, the January 6th case. And so when something goes to the committee, it goes to both the Republicans and the Democrats. So they got it that way. And Raskin said, quote, quite amazingly, in your rush to smear Jack Smith, you gave us this damning evidence. The Justice Department told me, no, no, there's nothing violating the gag order in this. We redacted it. And all we saw of these documents that the Democrats provided was an airplane manifest that shows that flight and where passengers were sitting on that flight with all their names redacted.

39:22Wendy, do we know what Raskin's next move is here? I don't. Arthur doesn't. Arthur's sake, yeah. He asked Pam Bonney, tell us who's on that plane. Tell us what the map showed. Because if this map showed the Middle East, he potentially betrayed our troops ahead of a war that we're now doing. It's also possible that they will rule that the OJ did violate Eileen Cannon's order. It's important to know here that Eileen Cannon dismissed the case. And so there is no active criminal case now on that. And Raskin, he's been on a crusade to get volume two of Jack Smith's report made public. The January 6th election sealing report is public.

40:02Special counsel's reports are always made public, and Eileen Cannon has kept the documents case sealed. So this is his campaign, part of his campaign, to make that document public. Now let's turn to another investigation. A federal prosecutor admitted in a closed-door hearing this month that the Justice Department did not have evidence of wrongdoing in its criminal probe of the Federal Reserve's building renovations. The investigation is part of President Trump's claims of criminality in the$2.5 billion overhaul of the Fed's headquarters. Some important background, Trump has long criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell and has been accused of using the building renovation as an excuse to push him out or force him to lower interest rates.

40:43Arthur, what happens from here with this investigation? I believe the Justice Department hasn't renounced it even though their subpoenas were quashed and the transcript from this back and forth to the judge made them look ridiculous because he's like, well, what evidence do you have? And they said, we have none, but we're going to find something. And there's already been a tremendous backlash. This is preventing Trump from getting a Fed replacement for Jerome Powell through the Senate. And if they don't drop the appeal and say they're leaving it alone, they won't get that nominee through the Senate.

41:17So it's, I would call it an own goal, another own goal for the Trump Justice Department. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller passed away last Friday at the age of 81. His family hasn't confirmed the cause of death, but disclosed Mueller's diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in August 2025. The New York Times said Mueller imposed the most significant structural and cultural changes in the history of the FBI, becoming director only a week before the 9-11 attacks. In 2017, the Justice Department appointed Mueller as a special counsel for a nearly two-year investigation examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

41:53In his 2019 report, Mueller concluded that Russia had carried out election interference efforts, but he neither accused nor absolved President Trump of criminal involvement. On Saturday, the president posted on Truth Social, quote, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. His death now raises a larger question. Steve, can I ask, as the country reflects on Robert Mueller's legacy, doesn't this investigation change the way future presidents may be constrained by the rule of law? I think it does. I think it emboldens future presidents. Both Robert Mueller's finding that there was obstruction of justice, there were certain things without then filing a criminal action in this, is going to be seen by other presidents potentially as a weakness in this process that emboldens them, combined with the Supreme Court that came in and said that acts that presidents take within regard of their duties as they see them are largely immune from this kind of thing.

42:53So you have both the Supreme Court decision, but also the failure of Mueller to make anything stick. And I think the real finding of this is the Department of Justice actions against a sitting president turned out to be fairly impotent. And that without action and the legal powers embedded in the legislature, this amounts to a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. And that's really what came after the Mueller investigation. We're almost at the end of the domestic portion here, and I wanted to end with a few listener comments. We got this email from Craig who says, I've personally been through multiple airports this week where I have seen ICE agents helping travelers navigate security points.

43:36They were not in the corner on their phone, as one of your guests suggested. We also got this email from Donald in Las Vegas. Our defense secretary is reported today to have interfered to block the promotion of black and female officers to one-star rank. This follows his early dismissal of black and females in higher ranks, combined with his Christian nationalism and calls for U.S. troops to ignore the laws of war. He has proven himself unsuited to any high office. Wendy, you were actually, in your notebook, you were going to point out this, blocking the promotion. Yes, it's part of a pattern that Pete Hegseth has had since he's become the defense secretary to return the U.S.

44:20military to one that is completely run by white men, even though 43 percent of the one million dollars, one million service members are of color or women. Thanks so much to our guests and to all of you for writing in. Steve Clemens, editor-at-large for The National Interest, Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPost, and Wendy Benjaminson, Washington senior editor for Bloomberg News. Don't worry, we're not done for today. We've still got all the global headlines to round up. Right after this break, stay with us.

44:53This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast on investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets. Listen today and subscribe at schwab.com slash oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from Carvana, who makes car selling easy. Enter your license plate or VIN, get a real offer in minutes, and have your car picked up from your door. Sell your car the easy way with Carvana. Pickup fee may apply. This is Ira Glass of This American Life. Do you know our show? Okay. Well, either way, I'm going to tell you about it.

45:30We make stories that hopefully pull you in at the beginning with funny moments and feelings and people in surprising situations. And then you just want to find out what is going to happen and cannot stop listening. That's right. I'm talking about stories that make you miss appointments. This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the news roundup with all of the headlines from around the world. And we've got a full house in the WAMU studio with us. Vera Bergen-Gruin is a national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Vera, hello. Hello. Jack Jack, also joining us, defense reporter at Politico.

46:04Hello, Jack. Good to be here, Nyla. And Greg Myrie, national security correspondent at NPR. Welcome, Greg. Hi. Great to be here. We're now almost four weeks into a war that President Trump said was going to take just a few days. It has so far cost the U.S. tens of billions of dollars. The Pentagon is asking for$200 billion more. But is Washington further away from a diplomatic agreement with Iran than it was in May 2025? The president insisted no this week, that Iran was ready to talk and make a deal. They are begging to work out a deal. I don't know if we'll be able to do that. I don't know if we're willing to do that.

46:38They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to turn a new path forward. We'll see if they want to do it. If they don't, we're their worst nightmare. But Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Arakshi, has said otherwise, appearing on state TV Wednesday evening to say there have been no talks and they have no intention of negotiating. The fact that the talk of negotiations is now being raised is, in itself, a clear admission of defeat. Weren't they previously speaking about unconditional surrender? What has happened now that they are talking about negotiations and requesting them?

47:17I will explain that there is no negotiation taking place, but the very fact that they are mobilizing their highest-ranking officials to negotiate with the Islamic Republic indicates that they have accepted defeat. The foreign minister also reiterated Iran's authority over the Strait of Hormuz, but said it was only closed to the country's enemies and their allies. Vera, we know President Trump has extended the deadline for negotiations with Iran, paused his threat to bomb Iranian energy facilities, he says, by another 10 days. But there's reporting that the Pentagon is also developing military options for a final blow in Iran that could include ground forces and a massive bombing campaign.

47:57What do we know about what's going on here? I mean, it's all happening at the same time is kind of what we're seeing. I mean, he's mixing diplomacy with threats and he's kind of trying to blend negotiation with escalation at the same time. You know, when you speak to U.S. officials, they say he just likes to have all options on the table and he won't pick and choose. But obviously the messaging is quite confusing. The framework, this 15 point framework that he's trying to get them to agree to ultimately is just, you know, comes from a position of him having declared victory already a couple of days into the war.

48:27And as the Iranians pointed out, there's really no incentive for them to want to agree to that. for some really vague relief. And so, you know, they're really kind of talking past each other. Greg, what do you make of, as we're thinking about all of these conflicting messages here, what are you hearing from your sources about how people are making sense of this? Well, it's, you know, we've seen the war fall into this familiar pattern. The U.S. and Israel are bombing pretty much at will. Iran has absorbed those blows. It's hitting back. It's at a reduced level. But it seems pretty clear that if this pattern keeps playing out day after day, it's not going to end the war militarily.

49:04So there's basically two options, escalate or de-escalate. And as Vera mentioned, Trump is sort of going for both. There are these efforts to have some talks that he's mentioning, but he's also sending more troops into the region, possibly for some sort of operation, presumably to go after the Strait of Hormuz. although we don't know that. So it seems in the past week Trump has reached the point that he knows the pattern that's been established is not going to end quickly in a military victory. He's going to have to either escalate or de-escalate. And in typical Trump fashion, he's trying to leave all his options open.

49:45Jack, on Wednesday, Pakistan confirmed that it had a 15-point peace proposal from the U.S. Vera was just mentioning. Can you tell us what's in that? And then Iran followed up with their own plan, which negotiators from Tehran say is non-negotiable? Yeah, what the U.S. plan looks like is pretty much the conditions that Trump has laid out and then administration officials have confused a bit. But getting rid of the ballistic missiles, the nuclear program, reopening maritime routes, the Strait of Hormuz. We've seen Iran harden its negotiating position. So it seems like their peace plan has been drones, missiles, sea mines.

50:19They came out and shot down in this 15-point peace plan. The U.S. move has been to try and go through Pakistan and their army chief. It's not clear that the Iranians are actually going for that gambit. So we'll see. It doesn't seem like the negotiations are at a point where they're serious yet. There was a lot of rumor that J.D. Vance might go and engage in this Pakistan track. That seems to be shot down. So a lot of smoke on the talks, but no fire. On Tuesday, President Trump said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was, quote, quite disappointed by the prospect of the U.S. negotiating a ceasefire.

50:52Here's Hegseth at the White House. We negotiate with bombs. You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future. The president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees our job is to ensure that. And so we're keeping our hand on that throttle as long as it's hard as is necessary to ensure the interest of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield. Greg, if the U.S. walks away from this conflict and Iran's paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard is still in power, what could be the repercussions for this, both at home and outside the U.S.?

51:31Yeah, first of all, I think we're not near an end right now based on the information we have in front of us. The Revolutionary Guards and the Iran regime in general has showed an ability to absorb the blows for now for a month. So I think we have to consider the most likely scenario is that they will remain in power. They will claim that as a victory if they simply survive. Now, then they would face, I think, a population at home in Iran that would be very upset at the level of destruction that they've seen, how badly the country has been hit. It will be challenging for President Trump as well, depending on a number of factors, if the Revolutionary Guards or the regime stays in place, if the Strait of Hormuz is not open and safe on a seemingly permanent basis, and then the status of Iran's nuclear program.

52:29So I think all of these are going to be factors in terms of the U.S. being able to declare a successful outcome here. Yeah, I mean, I think the points you laid out, Greg, sort of the escalate or de-escalate conundrum the administration finds itself in. If it escalates, it goes after things like Karg Island. We've already seen the Iranians harden their defenses there. That looks like a potential quagmire. If they de-escalate, they're potentially stuck with a status quo that doesn't really work, right? You don't have shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. You don't have shipping through the Red Sea.

53:00That's all bottled up. And then the difficulty of trying to dislodge the Iranian regime. Remember, the IRGC controls about 25 to 50 percent of this economy. They control telecoms. They control construction. It's not as simple as launching a signature strike and getting the next guy out. This is a regime that is deeply, deeply lodged in Iran. Greg, on the first day of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, military forces attacked a school in Manab in southern Iran, hitting that building at least two times. An estimated 175 to 180 people, most of them girls, between the ages of 7 and 12 were killed.

53:39The Pentagon has said they would investigate that incident. What have we heard this week? Well, very little from the U.S. In fact, not anything at all that I'm aware of. We have heard the U.N. human rights chief come out and say it's time for the U.S. to tell us what they know. Again, based on what seems to be available evidence at this point, it seems pretty clear these were two U.S. Tomahawk missiles that hit this school. and looking back, it seems that this was right next to a Revolutionary Guard base in southern Iran that 10 or 12 years ago was part of that base, but then became a school, and perhaps that information was not updated.

54:21Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has only said that this is being investigated, and there was reports of a preliminary Pentagon investigation pointing to U.S. missiles that struck the school, but the Pentagon has not said anything further. Now we had the U.N. human rights chief pushing for the U.S. to come out and tell us what they know. Harriet asks this question. I have heard that many U.S. military bases in the region have been effectively reduced to rubble. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, the situation has been pretty bad. You've lost already a TP radar in Qatar. That's a huge radar. You've seen the Russians involved in targeting.

55:02Yeah, I mean, some of these attacks, as the New York Times have reported, has forced some U.S. troops into remote work. This is a very awkward situation, and it shows, I mean, the difficulty of trying to keep these bases open, trying to keep these airspaces open while these attacks are going on. The U.S. doesn't have very effective counter-drone weapons, as we saw tragically happen in Kuwait, but also if you're involved in populated areas, it's very hard to knock down drones. You can't jam them like you do on the Ukrainian battlefield. So this is a difficulty the U.S. is dealing with, this air defense problem here.

55:34That's right. And I think it's also important to remember the U.S. diplomatic facilities have been quite impacted as well. We've seen a lot of embassies basically shuttered to a skeleton crew. A lot of them have had to close. A lot of people have had to leave. And again, this is coming at a time where engaging with, you know, Gulf nations, with all these allies in the region is really important. Here's Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking earlier this week. President Trump believes there's a chance to leverage the tremendous achievements of the IDF and the U.S. military in order to realize the war's objectives in an agreement, an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests.

56:09At the same time, we continue to strike both in Iran and in Lebanon. We're going to talk about Lebanon a little bit more in a minute. But Vera, this week, Israel carried out extensive strikes across Iran. Tehran launched more attacks on Tel Aviv. This is a joint U.S. and Israeli military operation. What is Israel saying about their interest in negotiating an end to a war in Iran? I mean, for now, there's really little sign that they're being slowed down by these negotiations. You know, obviously, their strategy is pressuring first as much as they can, as hard as they can, for as long as they can.

56:44And then eventually, you know, obviously engaging in this diplomacy. But in terms of these attacks that we're seeing on Tel Aviv and we've seen across Israel, we haven't really reported any indication that this is changing their posture or that it is bringing them to the table any more quickly. You know, again, Israel just thinks that, you know, they don't want to wound it around. They want, you know, they have a much more maximalist posture. They want, you know, their goals just go further than the United States. And so they want more battlefield gains. They want to get as much as they can in the time frame that's possible.

57:15I mean, the big question here is one that we've been batting around on the roundup for the last several weeks, which is where are we seeing Tel Aviv and Washington diverge when it comes to an off-ramp from this war? Greg, can I start with you? Yeah, sure. Again, I think broadly speaking, they're pretty much aligned. I think it's in a lot of the specifics. the Israel, as Vera said, really wants to see the regime toppled there and Iran's military reduced as much as possible. The U.S., and I think from Trump's perspective, he might be willing to settle for something short of that. The pressure on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, that's more a problem for Trump and the U.S.

57:58and the global economy. Israel doesn't really have to worry about that as much. And meanwhile, Israel is very heavily focused on Lebanon, Hezbollah and Lebanon, and possibly seizing territory, sort of redoing the occupation it had for 20 years in the 80s and 90s. So when you get into the specifics, they have some different goals there. But when it comes to Iran, broadly speaking, they're still pretty much aligned. Greg, can I just ask if Israel's goal is regime change in Iran, and that really hasn't happened yet. Militarily, what are national security sources and folks saying about if that's likely to happen now?

58:38Yeah. I mean, the U.S. and Israel say they've hit more than 15 ,000 targets in Iran. You actually get to a point in many wars, and perhaps in this one as well, where you start to run out of targets. I mean, they're really individual things, individual leaders. Israel is still going after they hit the naval leader in Iran in the recent days, missile launch sites, drone sites or factories. So there's not, there's, as long as they're still shooting going both ways, there are still targets, but you get to the point where what targets do you have left? It's more about achieving the objective and you can take out individual targets, but the regime is still in place.

59:20And this is why you, we are, you seem in the past week or two to be hitting that point where What is the strategy now? How are you going to weaken that regime or bring concessions when you've hit 15 ,000 targets? The 15 ,000 and first target is not going to seem to change the overall trajectory of the war. Jack, your thoughts, Israel and U.S. and goals? Well, yeah. I mean, I think since October 7th, you've had an Israeli government that's just determined to reset the security context throughout the region. in Lebanon. They've even struck the Houthis and Houthi ports in Yemen. Of course, Iran now, a major focus for them last year and this year.

1:00:04And there's also the political context in Israel, right? Benjamin Netanyahu remains on trial for bribery and corruption charges. So if he is to lose power, he could face these allegations all over again. So there's the political context that's going on in Israel. There's the security interests, which I think there's more alignment in the Israeli political sphere. And the U.S. is a bit along for the ride on some of these proposals. And it seems like just with regards to Lebanon, with some of the other theaters, U.S. also kind of playing ball and at least having a supportive role towards the Israelis.

1:00:37Let's talk about Gulf countries that previously helped manage tensions with Iran. As prior to this conflict, many view the six GCC or Gulf Cooperation Council countries as holding the keys to resolving widespread concerns about Iran in ways short of war. But almost immediately after U.S. and Israeli strikes began, Iran targeted GCC oil and gas infrastructure and commercial interests. The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council said this week Iran is violating the UN's law of the sea by charging vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Here's GCC Secretary General Jassem al-Budewi.

1:01:18Iran's destabilizing behavior in the Arabian Gulf has exceeded all limits as it has closed the Strait of Hormuz, preventing the passage of commercial ships and oil tankers and imposed fees for crossing the strait. This is a blatant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Farah, what kind of solution are these Gulf countries looking for here? I think, you know, they're realizing that their old hedge when it came to Iran has really just broken down under these wartime conditions. And, you know, now they're trying to work with the U.S. and just in general towards figuring out what comes next.

1:01:55You know, once this kind of perceived invincibility or this status quo is broken down, you know, they can harden their defenses. They can work with the United States on protecting their shared economic interests. But most importantly, I think, you know, it's also a spectrum. They're not a monolith. You've got a couple of them have become a lot more aggressive and others that really don't want to be pulled into basically being co-belligerents. And when you speak to U.S. officials with experience in the regions or experts, they say that's where the success is really going to be, kind of allowing them, not forcing all of them into the same political posture while trying to unite them in this whatever comes next after this war.

1:02:30Right, because this is Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been urging President Trump to continue the war against Iran and put boots on the ground. Greg, what did we learn from that reporting? Well, it's always much easier for a leader to call for another country to go fight and die for something he may— That's a sacrifice many leaders are willing to make. and I think what we've seen is this switch in policy among the Gulf countries, Saudi and some of the others. They really lobbied against the war.

1:03:06They did not want this war to begin. But now once it has begun, they want a very conclusive end. They want to see Iran weakened, contained. They don't want this war to end. And their big concern is really that Trump will just say, okay, war's over, we're pulling out, and then they'll be left to clean up a lot of the mess. And Iran has crossed this threshold of attacking the Gulf countries, which certainly shocked them at the beginning of the world. They've taken more hits than Israel and the U.S. military bases. So they've been the primary target, and they could see that happening in the future.

1:03:40Their economies are totally dependent on exporting oil and gas through the strait. They don't want to leave that insecure. And their very brand is stability, predictability, and international business center in Saudi and UAE and Qatar. And that is totally blown up if you have a war that ends with the region still unstable. So they have great concerns about how this war ends. Jack, can I just ask, we saw this week Iran hitting several sites in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. What are the ripple effects in Saudi Arabia, as Greg is just talking about, in terms of them actually facing the physical consequences of this?

1:04:23Well, it seems like for all intents and purposes, MBS wants this to continue. You see, even in the UAE, which has taken the most casualties in the region, they don't want to live next door to an Iranian missile and drone program. Problem is, a lot of these countries have been firing off patriot interceptors that are provided like the United States, basically like their candy. and you have an issue where the U.S. can't restock these stockpiles, probably can't restock the Ukrainians. They're at a point where they're underwater on these munitions. And then, I mean, you just get to the problem of what is the post-war settlement going to look like.

1:04:58Since the 1980s, we had the Carter Doctrine. That's kind of fallen apart, the idea the U.S. is going to protect the oil coming out of the region. But the Qataris, one country that are really pushing to have a role in the post-war security arrangement for the region. I'll just add to Jack, one of the minor miracles of the Middle East has been that the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has been open to oil shipping. We saw this in the 1980s when Iran and Iraq fought a war and the U.S. ultimately got involved to escort some of the tankers. The beginning of the Gulf War with the U.S. versus Iraq in 90 and 91, there were disruptions.

1:05:36And so So that seed was planted about how the potential damage if the strait is closed. Despite all of the turbulence over the past 35 years in the Middle East, the strait has remained open. Now it's come back with a vengeance right now. And we'll have to see, is it going to go back to what we've seen for the past 35 years? Or have we entered a new era where it will continually be a point, a flashpoint or a potential flashpoint? Farrah, what do we know about U.S. intelligence, how much they anticipated a problem like this before getting involved with this engagement? I mean, everything that's been coming out for the last couple of weeks, I guess, since this war began, you know, again, U.S.

1:06:14intelligence is very extensive. I mean, it's really unlike—and all of these things were things that even the public could see from the outside was likely going to happen. You could just look at a map. Right. Right. So, I mean, a lot of this when, you know, a lot of the coverage, because that's our job, is to figure out what was actually briefed to the president. When was this communicated? But again, a lot of this is very simple stuff. And the idea that this wouldn't have been briefed to the president as part of in terms of military options and the military consequences, you know, everything that's been coming out is fairly apparent.

1:06:42The real question is, you know, where did they make decisions or were the military options presented with, you know, while really understanding the timeline for these consequences? That's what we're seeing now is, you know, how long did they really play these scenarios out? Did they expect months into the future? You know, that's what we're seeing a lot of this breakdown, at least when, you know, you see what the president is saying. There is another front in Israel's war, Lebanon, where Israeli attacks have killed more than a thousand people. This week, Israel said it would establish a security zone in the south of Lebanon where residents have had to flee to shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily rocket attacks since the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group joined the war.

1:07:21Here's the Israeli Prime Minister. We have created a genuine security zone that does not allow a ground infiltration towards the Galilee or the northern border. We are expanding the security zone to push the threat from anti-tank missiles on our communities and on our territory. We are simply creating a large buffer zone. A reminder, a November 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, and Israeli forces gradually withdrew from most of southern Lebanon. Israel has accused Lebanon's government of failing to carry out its pledge to disarm Hezbollah despite its unprecedented steps towards criminalizing the group.

1:08:01Jack, we know that Hezbollah has said it would fight any move to establish a security zone by Israel. So what effect, if any, are we seeing the war in Lebanon having on U.S. negotiations with Iran? I think, long story short, it's not driving the administration's calculus. I mean, the one thing I think this could do is continue to expand the net of proxy groups that are jumping into the war. I mean, of course, Hezbollah and Israel is one front. We haven't seen the Houthis pop in. That could be something that could happen because, of course, we've had in the past those Israeli attacks on the Houthi groups.

1:08:35But I think this speaks to Israel's strategy because the Lebanese have been pushing and pushing for talks. The Israelis have never taken this seriously. And basically the feeling has been, as Netanyahu said, if you're not going to go in and disarm Hezbollah, we're going to do it ourselves. Greg, since joining the war, Hezbollah has kept up missile and drone attacks into northern Israel. We noted that Israel's response has killed more than a thousand Lebanese people, a figure that doesn't differentiate between civilians and fighters, displaced about one million people. That's a fifth of the country's population.

1:09:08Why is this war being embraced by Hezbollah? Boy, I'm having a few flashbacks here. I covered the Israeli-Hezbollah war in 96 from the Lebanese side, in 2006 from the Israeli side, and then the past couple of years. This has been Hezbollah's reason to exist. Iran created Hezbollah in the 1980s to be their sort of forward forces to fight Israel. And then we saw that in the 1980s and 1990s when Israel set up this self-described security zone in South Lebanon. Israel left in 2000 and said, and I just remember at that time, I was living in Jerusalem and talking to Israeli security officials at the time saying, thank goodness we're out of Southern Lebanon.

1:09:52We don't want to be there. It's a nightmare. And yet here they go again. Hezbollah, I think, is doing this because they're being pressured by Iran, which established them and funds them exactly for this purpose, to fight Israel. It's really their reason to exist. Hezbollah, though, is getting pushback from the Lebanese government now, which doesn't want them doing this. It's just leading to further destruction in Lebanon with no positive outcome on the horizon. So it's just round five or six or however you want to count, and it's causing enormous hardship in Lebanon. It's hard to see how anything positive is going to come out of this.

1:10:34Jack Farah, I wonder how, as we were just talking earlier about the GCC, where does Lebanon factor into all of this? I mean, I think it's a bit of a separate theater. This is something that, you know, Israel has been very intent on. And remember, Hezbollah sort of before the October 7th, before everything went on, was one of the most powerful Iranian proxies. They have a huge magazine of ballistic missiles. They had a very powerful leader in Hassan Nasrallah. And Nasrallah, of course, is off the map since October of 2024 when the Israelis killed them. And so you have a situation where they're continually degraded.

1:11:12I think this is really the Israeli mission to try and degrade and destroy Hezbollah. Now, of course, Hezbollah active in other countries, Iraq most prominently. But I think this is the mission of the Israelis to get them off the board. The U.S. kind of hasn't been present here. On Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Israel, quote, seeks to inflict the same level of damage and destruction on Lebanon as in the Gaza Strip. More than 4 million people have been displaced in Iran and Lebanon. An emboldened Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose aim is to inflict on Lebanon the same destruction and suffering as that inflicted on Gaza.

1:11:49A cruel and illegal response by an Iranian regime towards its neighboring countries, which we, of course, condemn and reject. because one act of illegality cannot be met with another. Vera, Sanchez has been one of the few leaders in Europe to condemn Israel's war in Lebanon and the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. How are European leaders watching events? What other reactions have we heard? Sanchez has been unusually blunt in calling the war itself illegal and in really aggressively criticizing both the U.S. and Israel. But, you know, he's not too far off when it comes to the rest of Europe. I mean, Europe has been fairly clear.

1:12:26most other countries, this is not our war. And, you know, despite Trump's threats and, you know, him kind of asking them to get more involved, they have, you know, they've said, we're not going to join the fighting. We're not really going to be engaging at all with that. You know, the Germans in particular have been pretty blunt saying we weren't consulted. But, you know, today's Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in France meeting with his counterparts at the G7. And what's coming out of that is largely them saying, we will help you manage the fallout. We will help you with a day after plan. We're not going to join on the side of the fighting.

1:12:58But when it comes to pushing de-escalation, helping with diplomacy, protecting civilians, and, you know, protecting our mutual shared interests afterwards, that's something we want to do together. Yeah, I mean, the Europeans do not have a lot of military assets to roll through the region if they're trying to do an escort mission in the Strait of Hormuz. And I think Vera hit the nail on the head, right? I mean, the message from Europe mostly has been it's not our war, other than NATO Chief Mark Ruta, who's been very, very supportive of the U.S. war effort, pretty much saying it's something that he's on board with while not committing European forces or European support.

1:13:37But you see some knock-on effects already. There's been a lot of talk in the news after the Washington Post reporting that the Pentagon might divert supplies from the Pearl program, that's Ukraine's air defense program, to the U.S. to restockpile some of those funds. So we may see that. And that warning is coming through from Marco Rubio as well to European allies at the G7. So that's something to watch, just these knock-on effects taking place on Europe from this war. Yeah, we'll get to Ukraine in a little bit, but let's first go to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. On Saturday during Eid al-Fadr celebrations marking the end of Ramadan, Israeli settlers attacked multiple Palestinian communities overnight.

1:14:18Eyewitnesses in two Palestinian towns said 100 masked settlers raided homes and set vehicles on fire. Witnesses told The Guardian that Israeli troops and police were nearby but didn't intervene. March has seen escalating violence in the West Bank. On March 2nd, Israeli settlers shot and killed two Palestinian men, brothers in their 20s, during a confrontation over settlers trying to enter one of the brothers' homes. On March 15th, Israeli troops killed four members from a family of six who were driving home from a shopping trip, including the parents and two young brothers, five-year-old Mohammed and six-year-old Ottoman.

1:14:54In total, the Israeli attacks have killed 10 Palestinian civilians this month and more than 1 ,000 people since October 2023. Jack, we know that settler violence in the region and attacks on Palestinians are not new. What do we know about what's led to this violence becoming more frequent now? Well, you see settlement expansion, and that's certainly been pushed from some of the highest levels of Netanyahu's government. You see Israeli officials coming out to the West Bank, putting out maps, making plans for what they want the West Bank to look like. You see settlers now in direct contact with Palestinians.

1:15:29that's led to a lot of conflict and violence from the Israeli side. And you don't see many convictions in Israeli courts for these types of crimes as these incidents continue to rise, and they include arson, assaults, killings. One thing that's very interesting, Naila, this week we've seen members of Congress who are supportive of Israel, usually that's Ruben Gallego, Richie Torres, people like Daniel Goldman now stepping up and saying, hey, this violence is unacceptable. So that's kind of an interesting shift that you see as Israel's getting a little bit more unpopular, at least in Congress, people denouncing this violence.

1:16:04Speaking of Gaza, this week, President Trump's Board of Peace discussed its plan for the strip with the UN Security Council, including a proposal the board says would disarm Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. Vera, how would this disarming work? I mean, they're still really working out the specifics. They're talking about, you know, these different five stages over eight months. But I think the most important part is the sequencing. And that's kind of what the sticking point is here, is that, you know, it's basically asking them to disarm in several phases and then, you know, destroy tunnels, basically demilitarize before a lot of the reconstruction and rebuilding and the other part happens.

1:16:42And, you know, it's basically making, you know, these factions give up all the core military leverage early before, you know, while they still have a lot of distrust that Israel is going to hold up its end of the bargain. And that's really kind of becoming, you know, the criticism there has been that these are irreversible concessions that they have to do up front. And, you know, it's still unclear if that's really going to be feasible. How has the board said that Hamas disarming would lead to the reconstruction of Gaza? It's more that, you know, that's the first part of it, that they first have to go through the disarming process before the other things that are on the table are going to happen.

1:17:21But again, you know, just given the situation on the ground and the way that these the distrust that exists between them, you know, it's not really clear that that's going to work that way, that they can completely give up everything they have and then just trust that Israel is going to hold up its end. Right, Jack, that's what I was going to ask. What pressure might Israel face over the West Bank as we see these detailed plans for Gaza? I think you see pressure from Congress. You're not going to see pressure from the administration or things like the Board of Peace. I mean, we have been moving over the past few years to, you know, potential support for cutting some of Israel's aid, but it's still not a popular position.

1:17:58So, I mean, I don't expect that to change right now, especially when you have a war in the Gulf that's threatening Israel's air defense supplies. Those will probably be easily restocked this year. Yeah, with all the turmoil we've seen in the Middle East the past couple of years, the Israeli settler expansion and violence against Palestinians in the West Bank just hasn't gotten much attention. I've been there several times over the past couple of years covering the Gaza War, but I've also traveled out to the West Bank. And it has absolutely been stunning to me to see how much the expansion is taking place with new settlement outposts appearing on all these hilltops in the West Bank, just far beyond what we've seen in the past.

1:18:41And the settlements have continued to grow. The big permanent settlements that Israel has built continue to expand. But it's all of these new outposts and the Palestinians just have less and less room to operate there. And this just hasn't received, it may even be, you'll periodically hear a report about this or the violence we've just heard about, but it is quite striking to see it for yourself how thoroughly the Jewish settlers have established themselves on hilltops in the West Bank. Greg, can you just explain a little bit more of that as someone who has been there? When you say permanent settlements, like what does that look like?

1:19:19What do you see and how it is you're saying as they're sort of expanding across hilltops? Right. So you've got a couple things. You've got places in the West Bank that are cities like Ariel. It's got 20 ,000, 30 ,000 people. It's got a university there. It's got factories. It's got tennis courts and swimming pools. I mean, these are suburbs that have been there for decades. And then you will literally see a small group, and I'm talking two or three or five Jewish settlers, set up a trailer on a hilltop with no electricity, no water. That's what I was going to ask. Is there electricity or water?

1:19:55No, no. And then eventually, even though it's not been formalized through the Israeli political process, it may somehow get connected to the electrical grid. A water pipe may be run up there. The Israeli military knows it's there, will make sure it doesn't get attacked. And literally over five, 10 years, then it becomes semi-permanent and it may get some sort of formal approval in the Israeli legislature. And then the next thing you know, it's got, you know, dozens or hundreds of families there. And then in the families and the Palestinian families that were there previously? Well, they're not there.

1:20:33These are uninhabited. Right. So they're finding uninhabited. But down in the valley below, there's a Palestinian town that's been there for generations. And suddenly they can't move as freely. Then maybe they can't go to their fields. They're worried about being attacked by the settlers. The Israeli military places restrictions on them. And so it becomes a real point of conflict. Jack, we have seen the international community speak out very forcefully against this. As you had mentioned earlier, given everything else that's going on in the world, do we feel like this has sort of maybe faded into the background of what UNRWA or what we're hearing from other international folks about this?

1:21:10It's not registering right now. This tends to be cyclical, right? You hear from European governments at big crossroads moments in the year. So, I mean, as we head towards UNGA in September, I mean, that's six months away, but we're likely to hear more from European governments around that time when there could be a General Assembly action on something that Israel's doing, whether it's the West Bank or Gaza, but I don't expect anything for the time being. Before our time is up, I want to touch on Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is now in year five. This week, Russia began a spring offensive firing almost 1 ,000 drones, 34 missiles into Ukraine.

1:21:47Ukraine hit back with nearly 400 drones on Wednesday in an overnight attack on Russian territories in Crimea. Greg, what is Russia likely aiming to do in this offensive, given the state of the peace talks and the U.S.'s focus on shifting to the war with Iran? I think the Russian objective will be the same as it's been for the past four years. It will hurl large numbers of troops at the Donbass region and try to advance and take over territory. They have not been able to win for four years. They've taken essentially the same approach, which is just try to overwhelm the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have been very creative and found ways with a much smaller force to keep these Russians at bay.

1:22:35Typically, we see the fighting slow in the winter when it's cold and wet and muddy and difficult to move around, and then it picks up in the spring and the summer. So you would certainly expect that to come, but it's not clear why you're going to have a different outcome. And we've already seen this week Russia fired 1 ,000 drones in a night, an all-time record at Ukraine. Ukraine said it sat down 95 percent of them. There was some damage, but not a lot. And so Russia keeps thinking just sheer volume in terms of troops, drones, missiles will overwhelm Ukraine. It hasn't happened, but we should certainly expect to see this play out again in the spring and summer.

1:23:14Farah, I want to get to a European leader's reaction to all of this. But, Jack, first, can I just ask you, Pentagon officials said last Friday the U.S. military moved Patriot air defense missile systems from Germany to Turkey. Iran has fired multiple missiles into Turkey over the past month. officials also said Patriot missile stocks were dwindling in Europe and other regions because of the war. Vladimir Zelensky said the move was, quote, not the right decision and would enable Russia's spring campaign. The big question is how does if this war with Iran continues to draw out, how does this affect Ukraine's ability to fight back against Russia?

1:23:49The big thing is knocking down Russian ballistic and cruise missiles, right, because the U.S. has a little over, you know, near 2 ,000 Patriot missiles in the arsenal. They're spending a lot of them in the Middle East. There's talk they might have to divert some of those supplies from elsewhere. So if the Ukrainians can't shoot down those missiles, that could mean major damage to cities. Of course, the targeting of Kiev and the energy grid was something over the winter. We may see those types of targets to continue to pick up for the Russians. Ukrainians are very adept at trying to do this knocking down of drones with their own interceptors, usually drone-to-drone interceptors.

1:24:27So it seems like the Ukrainians are trying to leverage their problem to get a deal for something from the U.S., but we'll see what happens there. Vera, what are we hearing from European leaders on all of this? We were hearing Jack say earlier, Mark Rutte has been supportive verbally of President Trump's war into Iran, but there's a big war happening on much closer to home for them. That's right. And that's been their big challenge. I mean, we saw the German chancellor who met was the first European leader to meet with Trump in the first week of this war. You know, he showed up at the White House to talk about, you know, to talk about Iran to an extent.

1:25:03But, you know, with a big map of Ukraine under his arm in order to remind him of what's going on, you know, they are trying to, again, that's why, as Jack has pointed out, they're walking that line between, you know, condemning Iran, you know, kind of on its face, kind of supporting the U.S. aims in this war while really wanting to draw attention back, you know, wanting to deescalate that conflict in order to go back to the war that they're really concerned about in Ukraine. And, you know, making sure that it doesn't distract not just U.S. attention, but as we've mentioned, resources. And, you know, at a time when the Trump administration was already showing fairly limited patience with that war.

1:25:39We just have about a minute or so left, but I just want to quickly ask you all what you, if there's anything we missed this week, what you're looking towards next week for, Jack? Oh, God. I thought I told you everything already. You did? Kind of looking back, I'm curious about what the Russians are up to on their other diplomatic tracks. Anna Paulina Luna invited a Russian delegation, high profile, to Capitol Hill this week. They apparently went into Mike Johnson's office. No Mike Johnson there. But it seems like the Russians are pushing on parallel diplomatic tracks. That's something to watch.

1:26:09Vera? You know, speaking of the U.S. being distracted, I think what I'm hearing a lot is concern about Cuba, the fact that the United States has kind of set in motion this oil blockade. And, you know, the island is just collapsing quicker than they expected in terms of its power grid, in terms of the conditions on the island. And, you know, the United States and, you know, Marco Rubio, who has been a main player, just hasn't had the time to really focus on it. Greg? The NCAA basketball tournament, which does have an international angle. It was like, whoa. Illinois beat Houston last night. They're in the Elite Eight, playing tomorrow for a chance and a shot at the Final Four.

1:26:42They're known as the Balkan Five. They have two twins from Croatia, a Serbian, a Montenegrin, and a Greek-American on their team. So as long as they don't discuss their politics and their homelands too much when they're off the court, they should be very fun and exciting to watch. A big thank you to our panel today, Greg Myrie, national security correspondent at NPR, Jack Datch, defense reporter at Politico, and Vera Bergen-Gruin, 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 acting executive producer.

1:27:19Alexandra Bote is our acting senior managing 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 podcast support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Naila Boudou. Have a great weekend. Let's talk again soon. This is Winning.

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