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The Brian Lehrer Show

Thursday Morning Politics: The Widening War in Iran

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

Politics, News, News Commentary, Wnyc, Radio, Npr, Arts, New, Lerer, Media, Bryan, Nyc, Daily News, York, Public

4.61.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John Heilemann talks about the latest developments in the war in Iran.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's the Brian Larissel on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, the Iran War

0:15.7

continues to widen, not narrow. What's narrowing appears to be the straight of Hormuz and the options for

0:22.1

trying to reopen it. There's apparently an important new division, too, between the U.S. and

0:27.2

Israel over how much more to widen the war. Israel attacked a big Iranian gas field. You've

0:33.5

probably heard this by now. President Trump responded by saying he didn't know about it.

0:38.9

Iran responded by attacking another part of that gas field that's in Qatar.

0:43.7

Trump is telling both of them, not just Iran, to cut it out.

0:48.1

World energy prices have jumped again this morning in response to these Israeli and Iranian attacks.

0:53.6

And if you aren't confused

0:55.2

enough about the reasons the U.S. went to war with Iran in the first place, I'm going to play

1:00.2

an exchange, and we have the luxury of time on this show, as I've said before. So this is going to be

1:05.7

more than like a 10-second soundbite. I'm going to play an exchange at a Senate hearing yesterday with Trump's

1:12.2

Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Remember, Trump and Gabbard's handpicked

1:17.5

director of counterterrorism, Joe Kent, had just resigned in protest of the war the day before

1:25.0

yesterday, saying the claim that Iran posed an imminent threat was false.

1:31.1

So in this exchange, Democratic Senator John Ossoff of Georgia questions gabbered about her previous

1:38.2

findings compared to the imminent threat justification for the war. This runs a minute and a half.

1:46.4

That opening statement, as submitted to the committee in advance of this hearing, stated that as a

1:51.2

result of last summer's airstrikes, quote, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated, end quote,

1:58.6

correct? That's right. And is that, in fact, the assessment of the intelligence community?

2:03.1

Yes.

2:03.7

So the assessment of the intelligence community is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program

...

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