Dramatic rescue of U.S. airman in Iran as Trump proposes expanded war budget

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0:23The latest in the war with Iran. A rescue mission, profanity-laced threats from the president, and a record-setting military budget request. On Friday, an American F-15 aircraft was shot down over Iran. The aircrew ejected, landing far inside enemy territory.

0:41Madeline Dean:Several hundred or more special operations forces took part in this rescue effort. And what made this particularly challenging was the mountainous terrain. NPR's Tom Bowman spoke with Pentagon officials familiar with the mission. But U.S. forces trained for this very scenario, retrieving a downed pilot in the mountains of the American West. And the air crews themselves go through rigorous training to survive and evade an enemy. Search and rescue helicopters found the pilot of the plane within a couple of hours. But the search continued for the second airman until late Saturday. His weapons officer, a colonel, spent again two days evading Iranian militia and Revolutionary Guard forces.

1:20Madeline Dean:He was eventually plucked from a crevasse some 7 ,000 feet high. I'm told by a U.S. official he's in stable condition, though no detail on his wounds. He was flown by helicopter to Kuwait. The pilot was rescued in broad daylight, according to President Trump, who celebrated the mission on social media. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also praised it on ABC's This Week. Well, I'm thankful that a second U.S. airman has been rescued heroically by our special forces. And we, of course, continue to pray for the safety, the health, the well-being of all of our men and women who are in uniform in a very dangerous theater of war.

2:02But on Easter Sunday, in a profanity-laden social media post, President Trump threatened to blow up Iranian bridges and power plants if it didn't open the Strait of Hormuz. It's a threat he has made before, and one that contradicts his earlier comments in an address to the nation, when he said other countries should be responsible for getting their own oil through the waterway. Build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. go to the strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. Consider this.

2:41The war in the Middle East is being waged in the skies above Iran and by the president online. But now he'll have to convince Congress to fund his military budget, the largest in modern history.

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4:37It's Consider This from NPR. Representative Madeline Dean is a Democrat from Pennsylvania. She sits on both the House Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees. We discussed Iran and the proposed budget to fund the war there, which includes major cuts to health care and science research. I started by asking about President Trump's profanity-laden Sunday morning Truth Social post, where he warned Iran that if it didn't open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday, it would be, quote, living in hell. I don't know why I'm still stunned by what this president does. I don't know why, except maybe that's a sign that he cannot break us with his repeated indecencies.

5:20Of all days, Easter Sunday. Boy, oh boy, how prayerful he must be. But it also reminds me of something, that this is an unhinged president with really broken notions. Violence just creates more violence. And now he's impatient, using terrible profanity on Easter Sunday because he got trapped. I guess he just didn't understand the risk to the Straits of Hormuz, though everyone else did. And let's dig into that a little bit further. You know, earlier in the week, the president said the opening of the Strait of Hormuz is the duty of the countries that get oil from that route. You sit on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

6:08What happens if the U.S. withdraws from the war and Iran still controls the strait? It's a global disaster. It's an economic disaster. And of course, the president should have checked with our allies before taking on this war with Mr. Netanyahu. Because you don't talk to your friends and allies. You take on a deadly war. We've lost 13 service members already, hundreds others wounded, thousands of civilians dead in the Middle East, in the rubble. And then you say it's up to you guys to get this thing straightened out? It is such an incompetent, dangerous way to operate. We are at a war of his choosing with no notion of why he went in.

6:54He's given six or seven explanations and obviously no plan to leave this war. Let's move on to the budget. The White House asked Congress on Friday to approve its priorities for federal spending in 2027, including about$1.5 trillion for a defense. That's a 42 % increase. that amount would be the highest level of military spending in modern U.S. history. Will you approve that money? I certainly won't. The president's budget is, well, let me go back to the basics. It might sound trite, but it is true. Budgets reflect our values. I sit as an appropriator, and so I want to make sure that my votes, the amendments I offer, the legislation I help craft, reflects the values that I believe my constituents want me to uphold.

7:47And here is what the president said about these cuts in a video released by the White House. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection. We have to guard the country. So he's talking about daycare. He also mentioned health care. There are a range of proposed cuts here by the Trump administration. What are you hearing from your constituents about what these cuts would mean for them on a day-to-day basis? My constituents are extremely upset.

8:23It is Easter Sunday, if you'll forgive me. and I recently visited both the Dilley detention camp in Texas as well as the Philadelphia ICE detention camp, which is housed in the Philadelphia federal prison. When we were in Dilley, Texas, Rob, I do want to tell you, we met with multiple families, parents talking about their children who are terrified, unable to eat or sleep. We saw medical neglect. One little girl, I think she was about two, had an infection so bad in her mouth that it was green to look at. What we didn't see. I didn't see toys. I didn't see books. I didn't see anything to help these children through their trauma.

9:10The kids were crying and saying, I just want to go back to school. I just want to be with my friends. We went to what they wanted to show off as an educational unit. And this relates to this budget because of all of the funds that have been poured into ICE. So they wanted to show off the classroom. You know what it was? It was staged. It was a Potamkin classroom with art buckets that I picked up the art buckets. It was so obvious no kid had ever been in there. I have seven grandchildren. I said, if my seven kids were in here for seven minutes, there'd be evidence of it. The art buckets were brand new with stickers still on them.

9:49The crayons were unopened and unused. There wasn't a book. They had splayed construction paper on a table and claimed this was an education unit. And I railed and I said to the administrator, how many teachers do you have here? One. For 99 kids, sometimes hundreds of kids from dozens of languages. is. Representative Dean, I want to end this conversation where we began with the war in Iran. You sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as we've mentioned. Many Americans want to know where this war goes from here. President Trump says it'll take another two or three weeks. Your assessment? I think we can't know.

10:33The only thing I believe from the pattern of behavior of this reckless president, who I really, I don't say this with any glee, he is unhinged and unwell if you hear him communicate. The only thing I do count on is that he bores of things very, very quickly. And I think he knows he's tanking this economy with the price of gas, with the price of every single good going up as a result of diesel increases. So I think he will tire of it and attempt to walk away. But what a dangerous predicament the world will be in as a result of what has happened there. That's Representative Madeline Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania.

11:21Representative Dean, thanks for your time on this Easter Sunday. Thank you very much. In a statement to NPR, a DHS spokesperson said, quote, the Dilley facility is retrofitted for families. Children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling. Residents in the facility have ongoing access to on-site medical professionals. Before we go, just one more reminder to take a couple of minutes to fill out the NPR News Podcast Listener Survey. You can find it at npr.org slash spring survey. It's short, anonymous, and it would really help to hear from you, even if you've done one of these in the past.

12:01npr.org slash spring survey. That link is in our episode notes. This episode was produced by Henry Larson. It was edited by Timbeet Ermias and Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

12:26It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Rob Schmitz.

12:35This message comes from ID Tech. Ready for summer? ID Tech camps offer Camp Crunch Labs IRL, BattleBots, and more for kids ages 7 to 17. Visit IDTech.com and use code IDTech to save$150. This message comes from Angie. If you're tackling a home project, check out Angie.com. From roofing to remodels and everything in between, Angie connects you with skilled pros who do such a good job, you might trust them to do other things, like pull out your tooth or be your kid's godfather. Don't actually ask them to do those things. Just let them get the job done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust.

13:16Find a pro for your projects at Angie.com. That's A-N-G-I dot com.