Bulwark Takes - Breaking: Trump APPROVED US Attack Plan On Iran

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Wall Street Journal’s Alex Ward joins Sam Stein to break down his bombshell report: Donald Trump privately approved plans to attack Iran but paused before issuing the final order. They dig into the implications of Trump's public messaging and how it serves as a tool for negotiation, while also reflecting on historical precedents that may influence current decisions.

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Alex, it's good to have you back on. It's been a while since we talked. We're talking right now. It's Wednesday at 5.30. I do this now because things change So rapidly that we don't know when what will be happening when this video goes up But this is moments after you are the lead byline a story in the journal about Trump privately approving or telling AIDS that he approves of

Attack plans for Iran, but that he's withholding his final order On those tech plans. I want to just dive right into it I'm the lead and I'm just gonna quote directly from the lead and just I want to just kind of Marinate on it for a little bit and talk to you about it. It's it's it's a really amazing lead President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of President Trump told senior aides late Tuesday that he approved of attack plans for Iran But was was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran will abandon its nuclear program Three people familiar with the deliberation said so I guess my first question is is it standard journal practice to call him President Trump? and not President Donald Trump in the lead or is that not my first question is

What do we know? What do you know I should say about the what he's precisely telling these aides? I mean, effectively, he's telling aides to like, you know, have the military get ready, you know, be ready for if the final order comes to provide some to do some sort of attack on Iran. I should note at the front, I don't know what the attack plans are. That was a, right. Could not get as part of this reporting. But what we got was in the situation room on Tuesday,

Trump and he's around with senior aides, you know, effectively says, okay, I'm like, this is, we're sort of good to go. Like, you know, I select these or I select this're we're sort of good to go. Like, I'm, you know, I select these or I select this. I can't tell you exactly with clarity but basically what he's saying is

get this all readied for if and if if I say go, we can go but he's clearly also thinking about this in terms of leverage, right? Uh he doesn't. It's not clear and he's been very open today, uh, that, you know, he's like, I may do it. I may not do it. I don't want to make a decision. You know, I'll make a decision only at the final moments. So he was kind of already explicitly

telling us this out in public, but it's just interesting that he's already made sort of the, the, well, yeah, letting his own team. No, I'm a go. I'm a go on this. If, if, if Tehran doesn't come to the table is another step. Um, and I guess I just want to kind of stay in this one element here, which is maybe you don't know. When he says, I approve of the plans, do we know if they actually have plans? Or is he just saying in concept, I approve now go build me plans? I mean, there are plans we should know the Pentagon as a planning organization,

CENTCOM has plans. DOD has plans. But I'm saying, has he seen specific plans? He's like, I approve of that plan. I can't be that specific, unfortunately. I tried to figure out what the plans were or precisely how many plans were shown to him. And if he picked a specific one or he just said, yeah, good. Get all these ready to go.

We weren't that specific, unfortunately. We couldn't get that. But we do know he at least said, I'm going to go on on an attack and you get ready for me to give the green light. Now, the the subjects are maybe just the text of the story is that he does still want to have some wiggle room for a diplomatic solution. Like you said, this just today, he said, I may or may not. And the story makes clear he's holding off on a final guess because he's open to the idea of some sort of diplomatic solution. You also know in the story notably that Russia, a real ally of Iran, has been urging a diplomatic solution. Do we have any

sense of how long Tehran has here? Not long. I mean, Trump's basically been like, you know, by the end of the week, maybe sooner, he's constantly criticizing Iran for not having made a deal earlier. So it doesn't feel like there's a lot of time. Now there's a, you know, if you're a Trump, you're, you know, this story's out there, but you also know what your language has been. I may or may not. And you're trying to see if Iran does reach out and goes, okay, fine.

You know, I mean, Trump is called for unconditional surrender. So the Iranians go, we're going to stop attacking Israel. And we might also give up any enrichment here. So it's pretty clear what the president wants. If he doesn't get that, he might go ahead and give the green light on these options. You think it's clear what the president wants? I think it's clear what he wants out of Iran, which is no enrichment and no nuclear program. Now, does that mean he doesn't, you know, there's some wiggle room? Like he might go, OK, you can, there's some wiggle room, like he might

go, okay, you can cap at 3.67% enrichment. Like, I don't know. But I'm not saying he's like no enrichment or not. I mean, he may be, but I think it's clear that he what he does want with Iran, which is just an indefinite no ability to have a nuclear program at all. What's your sense of the mood outside of Trump but in his orbit and maybe not even just the top echelon, the senior advisors, but within the Pentagon and the national security apparatus. Is everyone kind of on board with going ahead? Is there dissension? If there is dissension, where is it coming from?

Are there people who are worried about what involvement at this scale might look like and if so, why that's four questions. We don't need to do them all the time, but you get the general gist. Yeah, I mean I I don't know like specifically like you know, it's Hegseth against and Rubio for sure. We'll know that but I mean we do know that I mean the split in Magna World is real over this right. There are a lot of people that want the president to not get involved in another Middle East

war. There are some people in the MAGA coalition, but more specifically in their traditional Republican hawk establishment that have wanted to attack Iran for a long time. Right after Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Mike Waltz, you're wondering what you did wrong because you've been pushing Trump to do this for quite some time. Trump seems pretty close to doing it now. He may again, I want to be very clear, he may pull back. But it's, you know, the people around Trump, I think we got to come to things one, they are generally more hawkish, right? say, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, they're a bit more hawkish, and particularly when it comes to Iran and two, there isn't a real policy process underneath Trump, like there usually are

with other presidents. It's whatever the president wants, then everyone execute. Yeah, that's sort of what I was trying to get at. Is this really as top-down as it seems from the outside? 100%. I mean, they kind of decimated, not kind of, they did decimate the NSC, that's the Security Council. I mean it's that that whole process underneath where like they just have multiple you know meetings at nauseam one could argue too many meetings it takes too long. Sure. But until it gets to the president they offer three options and

then the president chooses one like that doesn't exist. Now the president people advise the president directly and he goes I'm doing this and then everyone underneath executes. So they're really I mean look is it around. We also know that Trump likes when people kind of occasionally push back or he likes strong debate. So is it possible in the situation room, you know, real views are coming out and then Trump kind of makes up his mind. That's all that's possible. But I don't, you know, the debate is within Trump himself, really. Like at one point, he kind of wants to do this and another point he want he'd I think he'd prefer a diplomatic solution but he feels like you know that time has run out to innocence and maybe I'm playing too much theater. Critic here or maybe over analyzing it but it's been notable to me how little there's been in terms of kind of leaking from within around like.

around like the planning process here. And I guess that gets to your point, which is that they're kind of following his beat. And if there was someone who was really worried about, for instance, dissension or, you know, analysis that, you know, would maybe box in the administration, but we don't see that right now. Not necessarily. But I mean, we did see, you know, Tulsi Gabbard put out that nuclear video in Hiroshima. Yes, that's true. That was that predated the Israeli attack, but it was maybe. But there was discussion about Trump had been pretty clear, right? Iran makes a deal or or we do this or this or this. Hey, right, right. And we had that we had that report in Politico yesterday that he was not happy with that. So maybe there is maybe I misstated it.

Yeah, or like, you know that I mean, that could also it could be it really could have been also about defense of Ukraine versus Russia, right? There's always been concern about that going nuclear. I think unlikely but that there was that concern. So look, I mean, I think that some of that dissension is out in the open. And there are MAGA non-interventionists in the government who are somewhat resistant to that. But at the end of the day, this administration is run by really a handful of people, Trump's inner circle, and will go with whatever Trump wants. But so I, dissension might matter, might not, but I think ultimately really it's like the eight people

around Trump. What do you make of, I have two more questions at least, but what do you make of Trump's very sort of public, I mean, it's very Trumpian, right? But also there's a purpose, I think, to it, and how he's kind of posting through it and being very open with his thoughts. And, you think, to it and how he's kind of posting through it and being very open with his thoughts and, you know, even today being like, well, I may or may

not do it. But, you know, unconditional surrender and, you know, the ayatollah, I wish, you know, good luck and stuff like that, where it's like, it's live commentary. But is there a larger purpose to this or is it just kind of him being guttural and doing his thing? I mean outside of you know Trump liking the theater of it and enjoying speaking out in front of the press. I mean he does see the power of the bully pulpit to a certain extent right? He exercises it and in this case he's basically I mean when he doesn't need our story to get what the message is. The message he said even before I went out was I may. Yeah. Well, that's

let me to that leads me to my other question that leads me which is like, and I don't think this is why I don't think I think under the answers, but like, you know, in a story like this, where you're writing that he may, you know, he signed off on or he's told AIDS that, you know, I'm comfortable with that, but I'm not going to get the final order because I want to have a diplomatic option here. The story itself is part of the you know toolkit right like I'm not saying you were used by the administration but there is some value for them to say hey you know we've signed off but then again Trump could

just say that himself. Right I mean he kind of did right when he was like I have ideas on what to do but I haven't made a final decision and look look, I mean I I can you know say that as part of this reporting. It wasn't like you know we had to go to the White House and and be like hey, here's what we got. You know, it wasn't them handing it to you. Yeah, right. So, but but to your point, I mean like there there's all and this is always true for any administration. Sometimes the story that they didn't provide as a handout could still be useful to an administration.

And I think Trump, you know, Trump who is clearly trying to build some leverage here by I may or I may not or I, you know, it depends until the final moment, but it could use to be like, hey, alright, it's true. So some reporter could ask him, have you actually approved plans? He might say yes, but I want to wait and see in which case, again, that's more leverage. So I think that's how Trump is sort of seeing this. I think he's really doing, he wants to solve this problem,

you know, problem diplomatically. And I think this is actually somewhat of a diplomatic opening gambit, just as one quick, you know, parallel. Yeah, sure. Remember in the first term, Trump was threatening like actual nuclear war with North Korea and what ended up happening. He ended up meeting and you know, Jong-un ended up meeting. And that resolved, quote unquote,

in a diplomatic fashion. So Trump may have that similar kind of idea in mind. No, it's really fascinating. It's also scary. I mean, we could wake up tomorrow, and it could be that we are totally engaged in Iran. We could wake up tomorrow, and there could be some sort of diplomatic agreement.

It's very high stakes, and it's happening all out in the open. It's unfamiliar, for me at least least I'm sure for you too. I just don't recall this type of uncertainty around like what happens the next two hours. Yeah, my understanding is it's not like tomorrow or like today or tomorrow. I mean, who knows, you know, perils of prediction. Sure. My understanding is that, you know, Trump is basically trying to get things in line so he has options and one of those as we know with military hardware moving into the region, one of those could be go, you know, green light but he also could be just really trying to kind of wait this out. Here's another sort of, you know, term one note. It is nowhere near at the scale but it's still Iran related and it's important. Iran had downed a U.S. unmanned drone and at the time his advisors,

John Bolton and Mike Pompeo were pushing him to strike Iran and he actually ordered that strike and the planes were in the air and then he you know, someone gave him a battle damage assessment of okay when the bombs drop, it'll kill about 100, 150 people, something like that. And Trump went, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not proportionate. And then the planes turned around. Right.

So it's also possible that Trump is like, might be in this mindset. And then once the plane's in the air, he might decide against it. I mean, once those bombs drop, and if they are American bombs, then it becomes a wholly different conflict. Totally.

All right, well, listen, we love you. We want to have you back on. Your reporting has been tremendous. Seriously, I'm dead serious. You've been doing tremendous work. Send our best to Laura too, who's been doing tremendous work. Laura Seligman is also on the byline there. We'll be in touch. Thank you for all you're doing and thank you for jumping on quickly to talk about your story. Again, check out Wall Street Journal's Alex Ward, who Ward who has an exclusive tonight not gonna read the headline because I don't know if it changes, but we'll see Alex Take care, man. All right. Thank you, buddy Mom mom, did you see my race? Oh, of course I did darling Look, you did your best you tried the thing is it's not about winning. It's about taking part

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