Is the “president of peace” preparing for war?
Sources & Methods
NPR
4.9 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
Last week, President Trump was announcing a Board of Peace
for Gaza. This week, he’s threatening war against Iran.
Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with NPR’s national security correspondent
Greg Myre and NPR’s Tel Aviv-based correspondent Daniel Estrin about war,
peace and the Middle East.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Israel does want the U.S. to strike Iran. |
| 0:04.5 | It wants the regime to fall. |
| 0:06.1 | Israel wants to join in on a U.S. strike on Iran, even willing to take the risk of that |
| 0:13.0 | retaliation that Iran is promised. |
| 0:14.8 | Last week, President Trump was touting a peace plan in Gaza. |
| 0:19.7 | This week, he's threatening war in Iran. This is sources and methods from NPR. |
| 0:27.3 | I'm Mary Louise Kelly every week on this podcast. I dive deep on some of the week's biggest national security stories with the NPR reporters who are out there covering them. If you are new here, welcome. |
| 0:39.5 | We have a new episode every Thursday. |
| 0:41.5 | The name of our show's sources and methods is a nod to a widely used phrase in Natsack |
| 0:47.2 | circles, shorthand for, how do we know what we know? |
| 0:50.6 | Who told us? |
| 0:51.8 | Well, this week, we are focusing on war, peace, and the Middle East. |
| 0:56.0 | Here with me in the studio is NPR National Security Correspondent, Greg Mairi. Hey, Greg. Hi, Mary Louise. And in Tel Aviv, our Tel Aviv based correspondent, Daniel Estrin, welcome back, Daniel. Thanks for having me. Let's timestamp this. It is 12.30 p.m. Thursday here in Washington, D.C., which makes it dinner time, 7.30 for you in Tel Aviv. |
| 1:15.4 | That's right. I'll be having dinner right after this. |
| 1:17.5 | Excellent. Well, we wish you bon appetit. All right, let's get into it. This week, President Trump is threatening war. |
| 1:24.5 | War between Iran and the United States. Now, just last week, lo, those many news cycles |
| 1:30.0 | ago, he was talking peace, to be specific, the board of peace in Gaza. And that's where we are |
| 1:35.8 | going to start, because details are beginning to emerge about this board who's on it, what it |
| 1:41.3 | might actually do. Daniel, you kick us off. We know these details because |
| 1:45.9 | of a leak. The board itself has not released anything, but there is this resolution laying out a |
| 1:51.5 | little bit about it. First of all, is this resolution real? And what does it tell us? |
| 1:56.6 | Yeah, this draft resolution was leaked online. And when you look at it, it looks like a resolution out of the United Nations Security Council with all of the wording and the way that it looks. |
... |
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