Apocalypse Not Now

0:00On Tuesday, the president more or less threatened Iran with a genocide. We got a full range of reactions. CNBC had questions. Deadline that President Trump has set, 8 p.m., has threatened to destroy a civilization. How does an investor process that? Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk? A lady in Georgia interviewed by MS Now had answers. It's giving war crime. We don't just annihilate people because we can. Tucker Carlson took a stand. If you work in the White House, we're in the U.S. military. Now it's time to say no, absolutely not. And Democrats, of course, said the president should be removed from office.

0:38Even the American pope weighed in. Attacks on civilian infrastructure is against international law, but that it is also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction the human being is capable of. But then it maybe worked? Apocalypse Not Now on Today Explained.

1:07Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Alex Ward, national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Alex, it's been roughly 12 hours since we got a ceasefire in the war with Iran. Is it real? Who knows, man? It's the first day of a two-week ceasefire. Who knows where this is going to go? I mean, at this point, we could have the war end or it could restart. The Strait of Hormuz could be open. It could be closed. The buried uranium could be taken out. It could be left in Iran. There's so many open questions at this point. The only thing we know for sure is that as of this moment, the U.S.

1:44and Iran will not be attacking each other. But that could change. And so the U.S. and Iran have stopped bombing each other, but those aren't the only two players in this war. What about Israel? So Israel came out with a statement on Tuesday night in which they said, yeah, okay, well, like, we hear you. There's a ceasefire, but also we're not going to stop attacking Lebanon, which is a sort of aside but related war to all of this. Well, the military has just launched an attack on Beirut's southern suburbs. The assault targeted densely populated residential areas. This Wednesday morning, an Israeli strike destroyed a building in the southern city of Tyre, following a warning from the IDF to evacuate.

2:27For many weeks, government officials have said that regardless of what happens with the war in Iran, their operations will continue in Lebanon. You also have Gulf countries, we should know, right? A lot of those countries are American allies, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc., who don't necessarily want Iran to just kind of be there, you know, a wounded regime that could reconstitute. They kind of want, you know, Iran defeated, decimated, unable to threaten them anymore. You know, as much as Trump wants to sort of play this as it's the U.S. and Iran and the deal's been made and everything's going to be hunky-dory going forward, there are a lot of other countries that have a say in this.

3:08You know, there's usually that saying in conflicts that the enemy gets a vote. That still remains true in the case of Iran, but it also, I guess you could say, allies also have a vote. And if you're Israel, if you're some Gulf countries, you're going to be pushing Trump hard to maybe not end this right away or at least not end it until a lot of other conditions are met.

3:30Let's talk about how we got here, because the president addressed the nation in what I would say was like a rather low energy broadcast a week ago today. — Operation Epic Fury, targeting the world's number one state sponsor of terror, Iran. — And there was no mention of a ceasefire, and yet here we are a week later and we have one. How did that happen? — Here's what the Trump administration would say. They would say Trump is a master negotiator. He threatened to bomb very important things in Iran. Had Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, their bridges, and oil and energy infrastructure.

4:10Targets they could not defend and could not realistically rebuild. It would have taken them decades, and we were locked and loaded. And that that led Tehran to cower and to basically beg to come to the table and end this war. That'd be their argument. He spared those targets because Iran accepted the ceasefire under overwhelming pressure.

4:57popular and this is sort of an anchor weighing the party down. I think the proof is in Trump's truth social message last night in which he said. Truth social. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran. But the two week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. Well, what's in that plan has basically been Iran's maximum positions for a while. Now, again, I want to note, this is, again, day one of a two-week ceasefire.

5:40Both sides are very far apart on their issues. The American 15-point plan and the Iranian 10-point plan are as diametrically opposed as possible. So there's a lot of differences they have to bridge here in a two-week period, which seems short. Does that mean the bombs fly down the line? No, but they could. Right. This is just a pause. This is not the end of the war as of this moment, even though the Trump administration is kind of talking about it in those terms. Operation Epic Fury. Less than six weeks. Clear mission. Decisive action. Overwhelming firepower. America first. A historic battlefield victory.

6:16If the Trump administration and the president himself are nodding to this 10-point peace plan that Iran proposed, does that mean that Iran kind of won here? There are no winners in this war. And not in the sense of, like, war produces no winners. Like, strategically speaking, everyone has lost this war. But we still don't know exactly who's, like, lost less until we know what the ends of these negotiations are. I mean, let's take a quick strategic step back here. If you're Iran, you've just had your military decimated, your regime decimated. You, by virtue of shooting Gulf countries, have lost, you know, decades of work to try to ingratiate yourself back to the region.

6:58It is now a more isolated, weaker, bariah state. And you've got the U.S. and the global community trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And you've got more monitoring about which kinds of countries might be sending you weapons to rebuild your military. On the U.S. side of the ledger, yes, you have decimated Iran's military and regime, blah, blah, blah. But what did that cost? That cost Gulf allies being mad at you and now their whole strategy of, like, being seen as this oasis of investment and progress within the Middle East. That's gone because Iran can still threaten them. You've got allies in Asia who are struggling with their energy needs because of the Strait of Hormuz closure.

7:34You've got a weaker NATO, let's say, because Trump keeps bashing allies over this war. You've got the U.S., which has expended tons of munitions to bomb Iranian targets, which, you know, I think most analysts would say harms future plans for a potential war with China over Taiwan, therefore lowering deterrence. And then you've isolated the U.S. more on the global stage because no one was really happy about this war. I think what ends up sort of tilting it in terms of in the way I would term it, who lost less, is what happens with the Strait of Hormuz. Right. Because that is the economic global choke point.

8:11It was open before this war started. And now Iran's grip on it is stronger than before. And they're the ones charging money for, you know, safe passage. So does Iran still get to do that? As of this moment, they're still doing it. Does that continue to happen or does it open up again? Or as Trump suggested this morning, there'll be some sort of joint toll sharing venture between the U.S. and Iran. Who knows? Okay, so this is all about the straight still. This has been about the straight for a while now. What happens next? Well, it sounds like there's going to be talks in Islamabad starting Friday.

8:50And it's unclear if that's going to be direct or indirect talks. By direct talks, I mean the U.S. and Iran speaking like directly across the table from each other, talking face to face. By indirect, I mean a mediator. Basically, it's a weird game of diplomatic telephone where the Iranians would talk to the mediator. That could be Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey. they give their points to the mediator the mediator relays those points to the u.s and then back and forth they go so it's a it's just a weird diplomatic dance the greater sticking point is going to be whether iran has the right to enrich uranium down the line because that's one thing that they say that they have you know a right to do under international law under certain treaties they think they need they say they need it for medical research or other kinds of scientific progress and so it is unfair of the u.s of the national community to force iran to give up its enrichment rights.

9:38The U.S. will basically demand that they don't do that, or at least that if they were to enrich, the U.S. would have immense oversight over that enrichment program. It's kind of shocking how we got here. The president did a post, as he so often does, but this time it was a post-threatening genocide. And like, did that work? And if so, is that just how we're going to roll now? It is shocking to see an American president basically like threatened to wipe an entire civilization off the map but we should also know or note i should say that in the first term trump basically threatened to do that to north korea right during the whole firing fury and red button stuff i think president trump when it comes to his diplomacy and his foreign policy is effectively like uh seth rogan's character and i believe the movie knocked up in which he's dancing with katherine heigl and he's doing like a dice dance move and his team goes like dude i think he's doing the dice thing too much That's really all he's got.

10:34Like, that's how Trump does this. He gets to a point, he threatens a major escalation, and he either encourages, like, an escalation of the war or some sort of climb down in which it's unclear whether the U.S. actually gets more benefit than less. So I think, like, this is his dice move. Escalate to de-escalate is Trump's knocked-up dice move. Now, where we go from here, expect more of it, right? Right. I mean, if the Iranians aren't playing ball diplomatically in the way Trump wants, Trump's probably going to threaten to restart this war. I bet on that. There was no question America was going to wipe the floor with the Iranians.

11:15That was not even a debate. The question was, could you win, quote unquote? And the win is described by the United States was basically stop Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. And, you know, it impeded from threatening everyone ever again. Well, they've got a grip on the Strait of Hormuz. They still have the nuclear material. That might go. But like, can you guarantee Iran's never going to get a nuclear weapon again? You can't. Their regime is still in place. You know, that could still survive. Trump is claiming it's a new regime, but it ain't. They're just a different group of the same regime figures.

11:45That's where we're at. Does it end? It really just depends on like Trump's whims at this point.

11:55This ceasefire situation is sure to change, and Alex Ward will be on top of it for you at wsj.com. Trump's threat to destroy an entire civilization got a lot of attention because it felt like a real departure from a wartime president. But it's very much in Pete Hegseth's wheelhouse when we're back on Today Explained.

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15:04Well, we haven't practiced this, but if I asked you right now in this moment, let's say, what is it? You know, spring 2026. Why is it important to support journalism right now? Well, Sean, the world is a little overwhelming at this moment. There is a lot going on. It can be a little scary. It's also kind of beautiful. And it's worth explaining. Yeah. I would argue in addition to that, there's a lot of trash information out there. Like people even want to rely on AI, but AI isn't being fact checked. It's just pulling from a bunch of places. And sometimes you've seen it giving you the wrong information.

15:41We fact check our show. You hear at the end of the show every day who fact checks the show. We put a lot of effort into making sure that we are bringing you the most accurate information possible. And you can support that effort. That's right. If you believe in the journalism that we do, as much as we do, you can become a Vox member. Vox.com slash members. 30 % off. Can you believe it? Let's go. Your first year. Sign up now. Thank you. Yes, sir. Quick question from Today Explained. Excuse me. Why are you so rude? Just wait. Today Explained is back. Before the war in Iran began, the president rebranded the Department of Defense to something more offensive, the Department of War.

16:24His secretary, Pete Hegseth, was fully on board with the change because his whole philosophy is something called maximum lethality. We asked Benjamin Wallace-Wells from The New Yorker to tell us how that philosophy was realized in Pete and Donald's first big war. What Pete Hegseth has wanted for many years, the kind of cause that animated him and that he brought to the Pentagon, the reason he took the job was to unleash, he would say, the ability of the American warrior, the American soldier to fight wars with fewer restrictions. We're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.

17:12We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. He has made, since he became Secretary of Defense, Secretary of War in the administration's branding, the phrase maximum lethality, his watchword, he talks about that all the time, unleashing lethality, unleashing a warrior ethos, unleashing the American soldier, and pursued that at every opportunity. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct. We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders.

17:53Pete Hegseth is really driven by this idea of maximum lethality. Although up until a year and a half ago, a little less, he was sort of driven by this idea theoretically. now he's in charge of the United States Armed Forces and in charge of a war. So how is he executing this concept of his? I'd say a couple of things. The first is, you know, it's interesting to note in all of the reporting that we've seen about the president inside the White House from many different outlets that Hegseth is the only person who's in the president's circle who seems as optimistic about, as Trump does, about the progress of the war and the possibilities of the war.

18:38So you see, you know, J.D. Vance, you know, distancing himself very actively from the war. You see Marco Rubio taking an ambivalent position. General Kane is pretty clear to let it be known that he sees, you know, risks as well as possibilities. But Hegseth has been gung-ho the whole way. We're winning decisively with brutal efficiency, total air dominance, and an unbreakable will to accomplish the president's objectives on our timeline. We stay locked on the target because here at the Department of War, that's our job. And so, you know, his approach to the war, I think, has been that American lethality will deliver whatever the president wants.

19:24You know, in the very first hours of the war, you have this massive bombing raid that kills Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And then President Trump comes out a few days later and says, actually, in that raid, not only was Khamenei killed, but some of the other senior figures in the Iranian regime who we had hoped might succeed Khamenei. It's dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody. Within about a day of the war beginning, there were 175 people killed in a school in southern Iran.

20:05Presumably through a targeting error, though we're still not totally sure exactly what happened there. But in both of these cases, you know, you see a kind of program of sort of unleashed lethality, a lethality of phrase that President Trump is now using, you know, kind of expansive, unconstrained form of bombing. And I think you can see in both those cases that it kind of undermines the war aims of the United States and the state of war aims of the president, both in eliminating some of the potential replacements in the case of the initial bombing and then also in making it just a little harder to imagine the Iranian public getting behind and joining in with this bombing raid and engaging in the kind of uprising that President Trump has said he wants to trigger.

20:55Well, how much of his approach do we think is coming from his own belief system and this concept of maximum lethality? And how much of it is like so many in his cabinet just wanting to please the president? It's interesting to see, to think of Vance, Rubio and Tagseth as each representing one kind of idea of the president. Vance represents the sort of nationalism of the president. Rubio represents maybe a more traditional Republican transactional approach. And Hegseth, I think, just represents the full, you know, military maximalism. And I think that Hegstad has become more influential because he is more distinct in this moment, you know, because he has been the one who has, I think, successfully seen what the president wants to do on Iran and made himself sort of the spokesman and enabler of that.

21:59If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you. it was the American warrior unleashed. It was the kind of warfighting American spirit that comes with a clear mission against a determined enemy. I do, you know, think that there's a pretty good chance that this doesn't turn out so well, you know, in public opinion and the progress of the war. And I'm not sure that it's been like a very, a very, you know, savvy long-term play for Hegseth. But I think we should remember that, you know, Hegseth, There was, you know, Hicks did not have a political base or position or role in the world before Trump tapped him.

22:45He had never been a senior military commander. He served in the military as a younger man. He was the weekend co-host of Fox and Friends. But if I had a dollar for every parent who came up to me out on the road and said, my kid went to college as a God-fearing patriot, and they came back a Bernie socialist who questions America, I'd be a rich man. He owes his position in the world to President Trump. He's, you know, according to public opinion now, you know, deeply unpopular as the war is. And so, you know, it's not crazy for him to sort of take a shot. And if we're thinking just sort of, you know, in pure personal, you know, personal terms, it's not crazy for him to take a shot and try to position himself as, you know, the face of, you know, the kind of maximalist face of this war.

23:34But I do think that there may be real costs for the rest of us of his advocacy.

23:43Another thing that feels significant to this conversation and feels like maybe a companion piece to this idea of maximum lethality is Pete Hegseth, unlike, say, Marco Rubio or the members of the Trump cabinet, is really tying this war and his approach to God. Yeah, and I would say to a Christian God, even more specifically, he specifically asked during military press conferences for people to pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ. Another element that matters here is he's referred to the Iranian regime as apocalyptic, you know, and together with delivering prayers, you know, from the podium, whereas putatively, you know, giving technical updates on the progress of the war, it does give an atmosphere of holy war to the whole operation, which is, you know, I think really unfortunate.

24:47Crazy regimes like Iran, hell-bent on prophetic Islamist delusions. cannot have nuclear weapons. It's common sense. Let me pose a question to you that we asked Alex Ward early in the show. I mean, Pete's whole thing is maximum lethality. The president seemed to want to go even further with his post that got so much attention and reaction. The whole world was on edge and then maybe it kind of worked. We get a ceasefire out of it that, you know, however tentative it might be. Does that prove something about the concept of maximum lethality as a foreign policy? Well, I mean, if you threaten nuclear war, you can spook some people.

25:25Like, I think that that's pretty intuitive. But I don't know that that really proves anything in terms of foreign policy. Look, we're looking at a situation still where Iran seems, again, all tentative, but seems like they're likely to have full control of the Strait of Hormuz, which was a major purported aim of the war, where the regime is still in control, where the United States has alienated a huge number of its own allies around the world with its willingness to play brinksmanship. So in the narrow sense of Trump had managed to get himself into a real trap, and then by threatening enormous, you know, lethality, to use Hegs' word, he was able to maneuver out.