Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, April 10, 2026

0:01 Earlier this week, Donald Trump threatened to annihilate Iranian civilization.

0:06 Then he said he would work with Iran to collect

0:08 tolls at the mouth of the straight of Hormuz.

0:11 What will he say tomorrow?

0:12 Nobody knows.

0:14 If you're having trouble keeping up

0:15 with the president's evershifting understanding of Middle East reality,

0:19 welcome to the club.

0:20 Tonight, how Trump went from apocalypse now to apocalypse possibly later.

0:26 Next.

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1:50 editor-inchief of The Atlantic and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.

1:55 Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

1:58 Earlier this week, President Trump claimed quote,

2:00 "Total and complete victory over Iran.

2:03 100% no question about it," he said.

2:06 Secretary of Defense Pete Hex added,

2:09 "Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield,

2:14 a capital V military victory.

2:16 Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered

2:19 it combat ineffective for years to come.

2:22 Iran's Supreme National Security Council had another view.

2:26 Quote, "The enemy in its cowardly, illegal,

2:28 and criminal war against the Iranian nation has suffered

2:31 an undeniable historical and crushing defeat." So that's obviously not true.

2:38 But are Trump and Hexath right to claim victory for themselves?

2:41 If it's truly a victory,

2:43 why is Iran in at least partial control of the Strait of Hermuz?

2:46 And why are the anti-American theocrats who have been

2:48 in charge of Iran for 47 years still in charge?

2:52 To figure all this out, I'm joined tonight by Anne Applebound,

2:56 a staff writer at The Atlantic.

2:58 Karim Sajapor is a contributing writer at The Atlantic

3:00 and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

3:04 Julian Ted is a columnist and a member of the editorial

3:06 board of the Financial Times and head of King's College Cambridge.

3:10 And Nancy Ysef covers the Pentagon for the Atlantic.

3:14 Welcome to all of you.

3:16 Welcome direct from King's College.

3:18 Thank you for being here, Jillian.

3:20 Glad to see you.

3:21 Um Kareem, sorry to do this to you, but uh who won the war?

3:26 So Jeff, this war I think is going to take decades to assess the full impact.

3:30 It's going to be with us for a long time.

3:32 Pop out, by the way.

3:33 Well, I would say a snapshot of today is that Iran was has been so

3:39 far the strategic winner of this war

3:41 in that when President Trump launched this war, uh he had big ambitions.

3:46 He was going to totally destroy Iran's nuclear program again,

3:50 totally destroy its missile program, destroy its proxies,

3:54 and perhaps even implode the Iranian regime.

3:57 And six weeks later, the regime is still around.

4:01 And they've managed to shift the conversation about the war because no one is

4:05 talking anymore about the nuclear program

4:07 and their missiles or the regime going away.

4:09 Everyone is now talking about the Strait of Hormuz.

4:12 This is a regime which came to power in 1979 taking American diplomats hostage.

4:17 Now it has the global economy hostage.

4:19 And so whereas before President Trump was asking

4:23 for Iran to commit to a total surrender,

4:26 now we're asking for Iran's cooperation to end

4:29 this economic blockade of this critical global economic artery.

4:33 Speaking of which, uh John Carl,

4:36 our our friend and colleague John Carl from ABC

4:38 spoke to the president uh earlier this week.

4:40 The president said, quote,

4:42 "This is in relationship to relation to the straight of moose.

4:44 We're thinking of doing it running the straight of moose as a joint venture.

4:49 It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people.

4:52 It's a beautiful thing.

4:55 Jillian, we started the week

4:57 with a threat of annihilation of Iranian civilization,

4:59 and now we're running a toll booth together

5:02 in his mind with uh with the Iranians.

5:06 How do you make sense of this?

5:08 Well, I think the best way to make sense of it is to recognize

5:11 that Iran and America have different definitions of winning and what losing is.

5:17 So for Pete Heesg and the American government,

5:19 it's all about destroying the military infrastructure inside Iran.

5:23 Lots and lots of bombs.

5:25 For Iran, it's been about showing that they can destroy the global

5:27 economy and have a sense of power as a result of that.

5:31 So in some ways, they're almost talking past each

5:34 other in terms of what's defined as victory because clearly,

5:38 yes, the Pentagon's right, they have destroyed a lot of stuff.

5:41 not enough to actually entirely render Iran's military capabilities um gone,

5:47 but they have destroyed a lot of stuff so he can claim victory.

5:50 But Iran has also destroyed parts of the global

5:53 economy and show that it can do more going forward.

5:57 And let's assume what they're saying is true for purpose

6:00 of the discussion and there's a lot of evidence to back this up.

6:03 How did this come to pass in six weeks?

6:06 Uh look, I think it came to pass because the president's

6:10 uh lives in a different world from the rest of us.

6:14 Um so his idea of what's true and what's not true,

6:17 what's reasonable, what's not reasonable.

6:19 Um his memory of events is very different from everyone else's.

6:23 Um he doesn't remember what he said three days ago.

6:26 He doesn't remember what he said 24 hours ago.

6:29 uh when he talks to journalists, he does message testing, you know, to see,

6:33 I'm going to try out this explanation

6:34 for the war or that explanation for the war.

6:36 You know, he um he he doesn't think strategically.

6:40 So, he doesn't have a long-term view.

6:42 He doesn't have a geopolitical theory.

6:44 And there are people around him who do, but he doesn't.

6:47 What he's interested in at any given moment is am I winning?

6:51 And is this a victory?

6:53 And it whether it was Netanyahu or whether it was somebody on his own team,

6:57 we don't fully know.

6:59 But someone told him this is an easy victory in Iran.

7:01 He went there.

7:02 It didn't work out.

7:03 Now he's looking for some other thing he can

7:06 declare that will make him look like a winner again.

7:08 You studied him for a long time.

7:09 If Pete Hexath and Dan Kaine,

7:10 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or Admiral Cooper, who runs SECOM,

7:15 if if if they had gone to him and said, "This is this is not only not easy,

7:19 what you what you've planned out here is a is

7:21 a fantasy." Do you think he would have listened

7:23 or was he so committed to the idea of winning

7:25 in Iran that he would have gone forward no matter what?

7:28 I I can't read his mind.

7:30 I don't know.

7:30 But it's it's possible that you know he he

7:33 does listen to whoever has said whoever has been most

7:36 forceful to him in the re in the last 10 minutes or in the last hour and a half.

7:40 Um and it's possible that had someone said this is a disaster.

7:44 It's a huge mistake.

7:44 Mr.

7:45 President, don't do it.

7:46 Um maybe he you know maybe maybe not.

7:49 I mean, it sounds like from all the reporting that we've seen,

7:51 including the in the New York Times and elsewhere,

7:54 it sounds like nobody around him was willing to say it in those terms.

7:58 I mean, some people said, "Well,

7:59 there's this danger or that danger," but nobody really said, "Don't do this."

8:03 Right.

8:04 Um, Nancy, let's talk about the exact situation in the straight

8:07 right now and the exact status of Iran's forces, naval, missile, so on.

8:12 I mean, the Pentagon says that most of the Iranian Navy is sunk.

8:15 Most of the facilities that produce shahed drones are destroyed.

8:18 most of the facilities that produce missiles, ballistic missiles are destroyed.

8:22 I mean on uh if you're just cataloging what's been blown up,

8:27 it seems like Iran is mo mostly neutralized as a regional military force.

8:31 Is that fair?

8:32 And is that a relevant issue at this point?

8:36 So the data that we've gotten from the Pentagon is quite limited.

8:39 I'll give you an example.

8:40 General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

8:42 stood up at the podium and said,

8:44 "The United States has destroyed 450 ballistic missile storage facilities,

8:49 but he never gave the denominator.

8:51 Is that 450 out of 500 or 5,000?" So,

8:54 while there has been impact, we don't know the scope and scale of it.

8:58 The US did successfully take up most of Iran's navy,

9:01 but what the war showed us is that the Iran

9:03 did not need the navy to close the straight.

9:05 What they needed were ballistic missiles and drones and fastboats enough

9:10 to intimidate shipping companies

9:12 and their insurers from transiting that straight.

9:14 That that was the impact that they had through this war.

9:17 And so military capabilities can do some of the work,

9:21 but it can't answer the strategic outcomes that the US was trying to achieve.

9:25 And what we saw is that the Iranians used their asymmetric warfare capabilities

9:31 to to leverage that towards um a a new kind of gain for them,

9:36 a new form of leverage in the in the form

9:38 of the straight and they continue to hold it.

9:40 So you were asking where we are right

9:41 now because of the strikes we've seen in Lebanon,

9:44 the Iranians have said we're not going to open the straight until that's

9:48 resolved and that we've only seen about a handful of ships go through.

9:52 Moreover, I think we're seeing Iran say

9:54 that because we have shown this leverage,

9:56 it is now instrumental in the negotiations that we either

9:59 are going to solidify our ability to make money off

10:03 of it financially or we're going to see the lifting

10:06 of sanctions such that we can benefit economically in some other way, right?

10:11 Um, let's talk about the negotiations.

10:14 Let's talk about this two-eek uh period.

10:17 It turns out now it seems that JD Vance is the man on the spot.

10:21 uh direct from Hungary and we're going to talk about Hungary in a second.

10:25 Uh Kareem, you just wrote uh in the Atlantic uh quote,

10:29 "Both Trump and Tran for different reasons have looked to Vance to end the war.

10:33 White House reporters who speak with Trump regularly believe

10:36 that he's already moved on from the Iran war,

10:38 recognizing that it's a political loser and doesn't intend to return.

10:42 When toppling the Iranian regime appeared within reach to him,

10:45 Trump wanted the credit.

10:46 Now sensing the worst unpopularity, he is content to let Vance own the outcome.

10:51 This is a fascinating development.

10:53 Will you let's talk about why JD Vance is in Pak is

10:56 going to Pakistan to to negotiate uh a peace deal with Iran.

11:02 So what's interesting, Jeff,

11:03 is despite the fact that we were just fighting a full-blown war for six weeks,

11:08 if these talks happen between Vice President

11:10 Vance and Iran Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad Balib,

11:14 this will be the most senior in-person discussion

11:17 between America and Iran since the 1979 revolution.

11:20 And the Iranians actually have requested to negotiate

11:24 with JD Vance for a few reasons.

11:26 Number one, they believe he's from the anti-war wing of the MAGA party.

11:30 he didn't approve of this war the same way some of his peers did.

11:34 Um, number two, you know,

11:36 they they believe that he obviously has ambitions to become president

11:40 and so he's highly incentivized to wrap this up as quickly as possible.

11:43 And number three, if he becomes president,

11:45 he will ostensibly abide by any agreement he's signed.

11:49 But in my view, there is virtually zero chance that we're

11:53 going to reach a settlement in the next two weeks.

11:55 Remember, it took the Obama administration almost 2

11:58 years just to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

12:01 And now we're not talking just about nuclear.

12:03 We're talking about the straight of Hormuz,

12:04 missiles, proxies, and a twoe period.

12:08 Uh, that's that's an impossibility.

12:10 Jillian, if I were cynical, and I'm not, but if I were cynical,

12:14 you're a journalist.

12:14 You're paid to be cynical.

12:15 I I I I I would say that Marco Rubio,

12:19 a potential contender for the Republican nomination,

12:23 uh JD Vance, a potential nominee for the Republican nomination,

12:27 u Marco Rubio sitting there going, "Oh, this is great." Absolutely.

12:31 JD Vance should go negotiate an impossible thing.

12:36 Um I'm not trying to say that this is merely quotinian politics,

12:39 but but give us your own assessment.

12:41 Is JD Vance being set up here?

12:44 Well, it's fascinating because yes,

12:45 it is something of a poison chalice in this way.

12:48 As you say, certainly Marco Rubio probably feels

12:50 pretty good about not being in Pakistan right now.

12:53 But as Karim said, it was indeed the Iranian regime who identified JD Vance

12:57 as being the best person they wanted or the key person they wanted to speak to.

13:01 They did so very cleverly, very cannilally.

13:04 And you know the best I think we can hope for these talks is not so much a peace

13:10 deal but at least an unwar state of affairs

13:13 where in a sense you end up with something

13:15 like a frozenish conflict where everyone agrees to take

13:19 a deep breath for a while and then lives

13:20 with ambiguity for some time and of course the Iranian

13:24 regime and tan is absolutely skilled at living with ambiguity.

13:29 It's almost an art form within the Iranian culture.

13:31 I mean Khim would say this better.

13:33 Um, absolutely.

13:34 A as you're talking about this, I'm I'm thinking

13:36 an that um how did the Iranians who

13:41 who've lost most of their military somehow create

13:45 a situation in which they picked the American negotiator

13:49 because they understand modern warfare better than Donald

13:53 Trump and better than many people in the administration.

13:55 They understand that with a few tools, with cheap drones, with cheap minds,

14:01 they can inflict a disproportionate amount of pain on in the US,

14:06 on allies, on Asia, and on the entire world.

14:10 And that gave them an enormous amount of leverage.

14:12 And it's a lesson.

14:14 If you've been watching the war in Ukraine, you would have understood this.

14:17 But of course, Trump not interested in watching the war in Ukraine.

14:20 If you've been paying attention to the way weapons development has worked,

14:22 you would have understood this.

14:23 But they don't care about that either.

14:25 you know, they're focused on other things.

14:26 Um, but the Iranians understood that with a very small amount of leverage,

14:30 they could hit this choke point.

14:32 Um, and that's given them the ability to say, "Right,

14:35 we want to we want the vice president and we want him now." Nancy,

14:39 inside the Pentagon, um, is there a belief that the president will,

14:45 if this fails, order troops to seize land around the strait

14:52 that that that he will actually pull the trigger on ground troops,

14:56 or is Kareem correct in saying that Trump

14:59 has basically just moved on from this already?

15:01 Well, we've gotten mixed messages about it.

15:03 I mean, General Kaine and his presentation kind of gave a list of all

15:06 the strikes and all the way down

15:08 to how much coffee was consumed during this war.

15:10 Sort of signaling through the statistics he was providing that we're

15:14 we're at the end of this, not in the middle of it.

15:17 And then a day later, the president says, "We've got our resources there.

15:21 We've got all these great weapons we're going to load on if we need to." Um,

15:25 so there's not a very clear message.

15:27 I will say though, there are logistical challenges that come with it.

15:31 The United States expended a tremendous amount

15:33 of munitions particularly in air defense throughout this war

15:36 and that is a factor in terms of thinking about how you uh operate militarily.

15:41 The USS Gerald Ford the aircraft carrier damaged its crews been out

15:46 for almost uh 10 months um headed towards potentially an 11th month deployment.

15:50 They were supposed to be home by Christmas.

15:52 Um there's a huge amount of aircraft in the region right now.

15:56 And so keeping a force there comes at a cost to the United States.

16:00 Going back in comes at a cost to the United States.

16:02 And I would add, it's not clear how doing more

16:05 of the same kinds of strikes leads to a different

16:08 outcome because what we saw is an Iranian strategy

16:11 of saying if we can just endure these strikes,

16:14 we can outlast the patience of the American politic.

16:18 Um Jillian, give us the view from London.

16:20 And uh normally very careful prime minister

16:23 has expressed to a high degree of frustration uh based on the economic pressure

16:28 that this is causing uh frustration about the president.

16:32 Uh give us the view of Trump at the moment inside

16:39 not only the halls of power in London but on the continent.

16:42 Well, I think extreme frustration would be the best

16:45 way of explaining it because there's a recognition,

16:47 as one senior British official said to me the other day,

16:50 that the Iranians understand the Americans much

16:53 better than the Americans understand the Iranians.

16:55 Um, and that's an imbalance, which is critical right now.

16:58 President Trump cannot understand how a nation can not fight just for money,

17:03 that there's well beyond money.

17:04 That's a key point.

17:05 That's one of the biggest problems.

17:06 But there's also a sense that um in Europe as a whole,

17:10 they're going through the five stages of grief

17:13 about the rupturing of the transatlantic alliance.

17:16 Um I think they've gone beyond the shock and denial and even the bargaining

17:20 into some inching towards some kind of acceptance about how they remake NATO.

17:24 And in the UK, they're trying to work out, you know, what all this means.

17:28 Are they going to get closer to the European Union,

17:30 which is certainly what Kestama has indicated,

17:32 or will they try and maintain some form of bridge with Trump or not?

17:38 One of the very interesting things that's got almost no attention

17:40 to date is that behind the scenes the British have been playing quite

17:43 an interesting role not just in Ukraine but also in the region

17:47 through Hormuz because because the British have been so involved in Ukraine

17:50 and the drone side they have been the ones linking up a lot

17:55 of the Ukrainian drone experts with the Gulf um leaders who actually

17:59 want some support on that and that's really a very significant way

18:03 they've been helping behind the scenes but without the Americans by the way.

18:06 Another area is the British have very strong capabilities in mind sweeping.

18:10 They're arguably they're some of the best in the world

18:11 if not better than America because guess what?

18:14 Britain's an island.

18:15 We care about this or I'm both American and British.

18:18 Um so again they are trying to create

18:20 this coalition of the willing right now that will

18:23 go ahead and help to try and break

18:25 the deadlock in Hormuz even if NATO doesn't move.

18:28 But it's a very difficult juggling act and the signs are that president

18:32 um prime minister is facing a lot of criticism at home around this.

18:35 Right.

18:36 And uh President Trump has suggested that he will punish

18:39 NATO members uh who haven't helped in the Gulf against Iran.

18:44 Give us the sense of the health of the relationship

18:47 between the US and its various NATO partners.

18:49 It's it's a very strange moment because on the one hand

18:53 um actually US and NATO allies are cooperating an enormous amount.

18:58 A lot of the strikes and the flights that are

19:01 going into the Middle East are coming from European bases.

19:04 actually the plane that crashed,

19:05 the American plane that crashed in Iran took off from a British base.

19:09 Um the the the intelligence, the logistics,

19:12 everything is being done with the cooperation of Europe and nobody's

19:15 cro crowing about it or shouting about it, but that's true.

19:18 And so on the level of logistics and and those kinds of contacts,

19:23 everything is pretty unchanged.

19:25 But Trump has in his frustration at being unable to be the winner as as he likes

19:31 to be and being reluctant to blame himself

19:34 for his decision or the Russians who are helping the Iranians.

19:37 He's he's looking for scapegoats.

19:40 Um and he's landed on on Europeans.

19:43 And you know, for Europeans, you know, no insult is for free.

19:48 I mean, they've been insulted, they've been tariffed, they've been attacked.

19:51 And there does come a moment when people do start to say, you know,

19:54 what, you know, what do we what what are we getting out of this relationship?

19:59 You know, we're still cooperating.

20:00 We're doing we're doing quite a lot.

20:02 And with with the exception of one or two countries that have Spain,

20:05 for example, has has blocked um flights flights into the Middle East

20:10 and they might very well lose some American bases because of that

20:12 and and it might make the Spanish prime minister a lot more popular than he was.

20:16 I mean, so another thing that's happened is, you know,

20:18 these are democracies and they have public opinion and people don't like Trump

20:22 and they don't like the war

20:24 and you're beginning to see political leaders saying,

20:26 "Right, I can I can do well out of attacking the war

20:30 and out of and out of uh attacking the American president."

20:33 Let's I I I want to get to Hungary before we finish,

20:35 but but Kareem, one question about I guess it's a psychology question as much.

20:39 We're in a period where nothing seems surprising anymore and yet Trump's threat

20:43 to annihilate Iranian civilization um was

20:47 quite shocking over the past uh weekend.

20:50 U how was it interpreted in Iran?

20:53 Did they understand it as a bluff or did they take it they

20:56 didn't obviously take it very seriously because

20:58 they didn't seem very scared by it.

21:01 That was a huge gift to the Iranian regime because if you remember what

21:05 got Trump into this conflict was when

21:08 Iran was massacring its people last January,

21:11 Trump promised on nine occasions that help was on the way.

21:14 And a lot of Iranians wanted to wanted him to make good on that promise.

21:19 And to go from help is on the way to we're

21:22 going to destroy Iranian civilization in three months was was

21:25 just a propaganda gift to the regime which has been saying

21:29 all along this is not a war against the Islamic Republic,

21:31 it's a war against Iran, Nancy, in the Pentagon quickly did did was there

21:35 was there a reaction to that that level of bellacosity?

21:39 Yes.

21:40 I mean that when that came out there was

21:42 a almost a rumor starting like what is he talking about?

21:45 What what would Kane the chairman do if he was asked to use nuclear weapons?

21:49 Like they just led to um a spiraling of scenarios of possibilities because

21:55 that's not the kind of rhetoric that you hear from the American predicament.

21:58 They're used to hearing that from adversaries like ISIS,

22:01 not from the American leadership, right?

22:04 Um, just listen to me.

22:07 Listen with me for one minute to um,

22:10 Vice President Vance talking about talking in Hungary about uh,

22:14 the upcoming election there.

22:18 You should never have a foreign head of government or a foreign head

22:21 of state threatening the foreign threatening

22:24 the head of government of an allied nation.

22:26 It's preposterous.

22:28 I've also been told that the vice president

22:30 of the United States coming and saying that Victor

22:32 Orban is doing a good job and is a helpful statesman to the cause of peace,

22:37 that's foreign influence.

22:38 But what's not foreign influence is when the European Union threatens

22:43 billions of dollars withheld from Hungary because you guys protect your borders.

22:47 That's apparently not foreign influence.

22:50 Jillian, what do you make of that?

22:52 Um well, it's certainly a statement that's

22:54 caused a lot of consternation across the European

22:55 Union and the UK because there is

22:58 a sense that America's increasingly interfering in elections.

23:01 Um and frankly, it's a pretty shocking statement because

23:04 that is not what the European Union was doing.

23:06 It was linked to the corruption issues.

23:08 I mean, the Financial Times did a big investigation into that.

23:11 Um and that's why funding was potentially being withheld.

23:14 It was around corruption.

23:16 Um, and the interference or attempted

23:18 interference in the election in Hungary has

23:21 been so blatant that I suspect perversely it may have the opposite reaction.

23:26 And as we just heard from an European

23:29 politicians are learning that it actually pays

23:31 to be standing up to President Trump and that makes them more not less popular.

23:34 Right.

23:35 And you're an expert on among other things Hungarian politics.

23:38 Someone has to do it.

23:40 Um, I'll I'll give you the the last word on this that that that statement.

23:45 Uh it was fairly remarkable in in many respects,

23:49 including the idea that uh the vice president

23:52 is in Hungary nearly campaigning with with Victor Orb.

23:57 He went to a campaign rally who's literally almost standing there.

24:01 Um and then he's talking about the absurdity of foreign interference,

24:05 how bad foreign interference is.

24:06 What did you make of that?

24:08 And how was that going to affect the upcoming election?

24:10 It was stunning hypocrisy, actually.

24:12 Stunning.

24:13 um you know that he would start talking about the EU

24:15 interfering which is baseless and untrue even while he's interfering.

24:20 Um and it's all in the cause of the leader

24:22 in Europe who is the most pro-Russian um who has

24:26 worked who has also worked closely with China who was

24:29 helping out Iran in fact uh at an earlier stage.

24:32 Um you know this is a country that has worked against US

24:35 security interests against European security interests

24:38 for you know years and years now.

24:41 Um it's a it's a it's a leader who has um occupied the um

24:46 you know the taken over the state in a in a in an illiberal way.

24:50 You know why is the United States supporting Hungary?

24:53 Right.

24:53 Um well we'll be talking about this next week I think.

24:56 U but we are going to have to to leave it there for now.

24:59 I want to thank our guests for joining me

25:01 and I want to thank you at home for watching us.

25:03 For more on what China has learned

25:04 from the Iran war please visit theatlantic.com.

25:08 I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

25:09 Good night from Washington.

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