From WNYC Studios.

I'm Brian Lehrer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Thursday, April 2nd.

So here are a few lines from President Trump's Iran war speech last night that jumped out at me,

starting with one that I'm surprised hasn't been

getting much attention in the post-speech coverage. He pretty much confirmed that this is a war

of choice. People have criticized it as a war of choice, right? But he said that the U.S.

doesn't have to be there for our own economy or national security.

Listen.

We don't have to be there.

We don't need their oil.

We don't need anything they have, but we're there to help our allies.

That's exactly what Trump has criticized past presidents for, right?

Making the United States the policemen of the world,

spending billions of tax dollars that could be spent on Americans and sacrificing Americans'

lives. But last night, he said, you heard it there, we don't have to be there. We're there

to help our allies. Listeners, you may judge that as a worthy thing to do or not. Opinions will differ,

but either way, it's a reversal and an admission that it's a war of choice. Now I'll play

three short excerpts from one paragraph in the speech that I thought was a very rich paragraph

with big things coming kind of rapid fire.

First, he told us what he is going to do in a way you might find crass,

...