Drone warfare / Iran on the brink? / Ukraine four years on
Sources & Methods
NPR
4.9 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The seas of the Middle East are bristling with American warships and airpower trained on Iran. What does President Trump have in mind for them?
Host Mary Louise Kelly talks with National Security Correspondent Greg Myre and Pentagon Correspondent Tom Bowman about Trump's aims in nuclear negotiations with Iran and the risks of military action.
And four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a look at the many obstacles to peace and how Ukraine has pioneered a scrappy, improvised way of fighting, built around inexpensive drones.Email the show at sourcesandmethods@npr.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, |
| 0:05.4 | investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. |
| 0:11.1 | More information is available at Hewlett.org. |
| 0:16.9 | If they go forward with a massive attack on Iran, the Iranians may say, you know what? |
| 0:23.7 | We're going to go full speed ahead and attack Americans. |
| 0:28.9 | The seas of the Middle East are bristling with American warships and air power trained on Iran. |
| 0:36.8 | What does President Trump have in mind for them? |
| 0:39.2 | This is sources and methods from NPR. |
| 0:43.6 | I'm Mary Louise Kelly each Thursday. We discuss some of the week's biggest Natsack news. |
| 0:49.0 | This week, that is Trump's threat to take some sort of military action against Iran if he does not get a nuclear deal at the negotiating table. |
| 0:58.0 | The latest round of those talks was today in Geneva as we tape around 1 p.m. Eastern, it does feel like we're on the precipice of something. |
| 1:08.3 | But what? Let's talk through what we know and how we know it and the many things we do not know at this hour with two of our regulars, National Security correspondent Greg Myrie. Hey, Greg. |
| 1:18.3 | Hi, Mary Louise. And Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Good to be with you. Howdy Tom. So President Trump's State of the Union address this week. it was a 108 minutes long, if that sounds long. |
| 1:31.9 | It was long. It was indeed the longest on record per the American presidency project. |
| 1:37.3 | They have stats that go back to 1964. |
| 1:40.0 | Of those 108 minutes, about three and a half were spent on Iran, the country that the U.S. could be at war with any day now, according to President Trump. Greg, what did he actually say? Any tidbits that we learned from the State of the Union address? Well, to me, it was more important what he didn't say. I mean, this was the biggest |
| 2:02.1 | audience he has for a speech. He didn't really make a case to the public. He hasn't really |
| 2:08.6 | gone. Or Congress, by the way. Marka Rubio briefed a few members this week, but just eight of them. |
| 2:15.4 | He hasn't offered a legal justification for why the U.S. |
| 2:19.2 | could attack Iran. He hasn't gone to the United Nations. He hasn't built a coalition aside from |
| 2:25.4 | Israel. In fact, quite the opposite. Some U.S. allies, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have |
| 2:30.5 | specifically said, we don't want to be involved. Don't use our airspace. You can't use |
... |
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