Trump Goes from Obliteration to Negotiation on Iran

In the past few days, Donald Trump went from threatening to obliterate Iran's power plants to announcing a surprise diplomatic reprieve and declaring that the war has been won. This episode breaks down the whiplash: what actually happened, whether the talks are real, why an agreement between the US and Iran will be extraordinarily hard to reach, and why $580 million worth of energy trades just minutes before Trump's announcement reek of insider trading and corruption. Ben and Tommy also cover: the US allowing Iran to sell $14 billion worth of oil, Iran firing missiles at a joint US-UK military base, Israel's creeping occupation of southern Lebanon, signs that Trump is actually harming far-right parties in Europe, and how a workout app put a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at risk. Then Tommy talks with Edward Fishman, the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare, about the ballooning economic cost of war with Iran and how it’s revealing America’s economic vulnerabilities.

For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.

Preorder Ben’s book All We Say: The Battle for American Identity: A History in 15 Speeches (Barnes & Noble, Bookshop) and subscribe to his Substack here.