The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the great volatility in Iran, that the U.S. and Israel did not entrap each other, the political commentary at the Oscars, and a competition for the biggest gambling center on the east coast.Part I (00:13 – 13:20)The Great Volatility in Iran: Americans Want Answers and a Conclusion, But This Situation Has a Much Longer and Messier History Than Most RealizePart II (13:20 – 16:54)The U.S. and Israel Did Not Entrap Each Other: Each is a Sovereign Nation with Respective Self-Interests and are Acting AccordinglyPart III (16:54 – 24:30)Hollywood is Going to Be Hollywood: The Political Commentary at the Oscars – Do Americans Even Care?Part IV (24:30 – 27:33)Competition for the Biggest Gambling Center on the East Coast? The Building of Several Multi-Billion Dollar Gambling Centers Is a Game-ChangerNew Jersey Is Reconsidering Legalizing Casinos Outside Atlantic City by The New York Times (Dana Rubinstein and Tracey Tully)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Wednesday, March 18, 2006. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. We are facing an avalanche of headlines, and let's face it, so many of them right now are coming, primarily about the joint American-Israeli military action against Iran. And, you know, from time to time, Christians need to step back and say, okay, what are the big issues here? Because we're talking about so many headlines, it's hard to even keep up with them. And of course, yesterday we had the major headlines about an Israeli strike that took out two of the main military leaders there in Iran. And of course, that's a thinning group to begin with. That includes Ali Larajani, who was the head of the countries that's Iran's Supreme National Security Council. He was believed to have been basically in charge between the death of the second Ayatollah and the selection by the Supreme Council of the new Ayatollah, who, by the way,

has spoken in terms of a written statement, but is rumored to have been badly injured in terms of the attack that killed his father and other members of his family, and he has not been seen in person nor heard in person. And so we really are talking about some very interesting days. The other person, by the way, who was killed in the Israeli attack was Brigadier General Soleimani, who's identified by the New York Times as the head of a powerful plainclosed militia aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary guards court. Okay, fascinating, fascinating stuff here because all of this is coming. So let's just step back for a moment. When you're talking about this, even the vocabulary is at stake. What do we call what is going on right now in and over and around Iran? Is it a war? Well, the president

even used that word when he was making initial announcements to the United States concerning the joint U.S. Israeli action. But it's not a war in terms of the fact that the president, President has not requested for Congress to issue an official declaration of war. In the Constitution, that's an Article I power invested in the Congress. But the president is commander in chief. And as we've discussed, ever since World War II, this has been a very controversial issue because president after president has had to take military action or has believed at the time it was right to take military action. And there may or may not be any involvement by Congress in terms of pre-authorization or approval. And a part of that is just how fast things are happening. Go back to the

foundational era of the United States. Go back to the framing of the U.S. constitutions. Let's go back to the late 1780s. And when you find the United States, you find this emerging power, now a new and independent nation, having won its freedom from Britain, and at the same time, it has just won a war of independence that has drained the country. And so the country wants to repair itself from that. And so when you look at the Constitution that came out of the constitutional convention and you look at the document, the Article I powers of Congress include the sole power to declare war, but the president of the United States in the Article 2 powers of the presidency is given the role of commander in chief. And you know what? That really wasn't much of a conflict going back to

the late 18th century. It wasn't much of a conflict because war didn't just happen overnight, at least in terms of the kinds of transatlantic wars that were the real threat to the United States of America as a young nation. You were going to see the Navy coming. You were going to know that the armies are marching. And so there was plenty of time for Congress to deliberate and take whatever action Congress thought right. But living in the day of intercontinental ballistic missiles, living in the nuclear age, all that basically has been wiped away by the course of events, but the text of the Constitution, of course, has not changed. And so what has changed is the fact that American presidents have begun taking what can only be described as unilateral action from time

to time, acting as commander-in-chief almost always with the argument that there is an immediacy, an urgency, an emergency, an immediate danger or threat to the United States that requires a military response. And as I pointed out already, this is not a clear issue in which you have the president simply usurping this authority, because it's also true that, as on so many other issues, Congress has largely demonstrated it really doesn't want that authority. Now, a part of that is the fact that events are moving very fast, but the other part of that is the fact that Congress, particularly in this age of a great partisan divide, Congress finds a great difficulty in taking any common action on anything that might be so divisive as, for instance, President Trump's military action undertaken in Iran and now around Iran.

What is the bottom line in this? The bottom line in this is that the Constitution stands, our constitutional order stands. But it is being redefined by events. And there are strains. There is no doubt. There are strains. There are strains within the Republican Party and strains within the administration. And there are also competing interests here, and there are competing arguments for how exactly President Trump and the United States should make decisions about this military effort going forward.

For example, there are some major American newspapers and major American political authorities, military specialists who are also saying the best thing the United States can do right now is just get out quickly, basically declare victory and get out. That was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek argument made back in the 1960s about the United States getting out of Vietnam. It had turned into a quagmire, which had turned into a national crisis. And so there were some who said, look, just declare victory and get out. Of course, it's not that easy. And so you had successive administrations, the Nixon administration, and then the Ford administration, who said, we want to get out. But it has to be with some national honor. and the plausibility of an argument that was put forth.

And of course, the plausibility of the argument was the continued existence of the South Vietnamese Democratic government. And it did last after the United States left, but not for long. The other argument being put forward and all of this right now in public, because you can't hide this kind of military action. Something like this may have been at least begun on a covert basis in previous generations. But in the digital age, you're pretty much. right up to date with at least much of the military action because you have a smartphone, you're all of a sudden a military reporter. You're a videographer. Okay, so there are others who are making the argument. No, we now have to stay invested in this fight until sufficient gains

against Iran are achieved such that Iran, if not being set back something like 10 years, could actually be set back in terms of regime change or especially games. gaining control over the radioactive materials that could be made into a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. And so there are some who are saying, no, the last thing the United States and Israel need to do right now is to just declare victory and get out. No, there's still too much at stake. And there is no plan at this point that is abundantly clear for how the Strait of Hormuz could be truly opened for traffic. And thus, this could leave Iran basically with a chokehold over the economy of the world. And that's something this needs.

not going to be acceptable. Going back to the goal of regime change, you know, this gets back to something Christians do understand. It's a basic principle, which is that political reality eventually will show. This is just based in a Christian understanding of realism. The political reality will show. In other words, if a significant number, a sufficient number of Iranian citizens want a regime change, there could well be a regime change. But in the absence of that significant desire on the part of the Iranian people for a different regime, the reality is that the regime's likely to stay in power. And when you look at this kind of authoritarian, totalitarian regime, and of course, this one is different in the sense that it is an Islamic Republic claiming

not only secular and military and legal, but also theological authority, this is an unprecedented development in terms of the modern age. And, of course, it has massive powers of repression and oppression, and punishment, and the regime has been ruthless killing people just for demonstrating. Eventually, however, there is precedent in world history for the people simply saying enough and the regime falling, but that is not something that is readily apparent. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been shifting the argument as he speaks to the Israeli people saying, we want regime change, but there is no guarantee of a short-term regime change in light of this military action. President Trump has made numerous comments, but he has also shifted, at least in part, from an argument for regime change to an argument basically for bombing Iran back into kind of the dark ages, such that it will take a good many years for Iran to recover, if ever, in terms of posing a military threat.

The problem is, again, as we discussed it, that you have this asymmetrical reality where an Iran with drones, able to shut down the strait of Hormuz is actually in Iran. that in that sense is just as dangerous as was Iran before these attacks began. And so none of this is easy. That's another big lesson for Christians. One of the things we understand is that even when it comes to, say, military power, here you have the United States of America. There's almost no doubt. The most powerful military the world has ever seen.

There are challengers, to be sure. Russia, obviously a challenge, particularly in nuclear weapons. China, clearly intending to be a long-term challenger to the military. superiority of the United States. And then you take the United States right now, and then you add to the United States Israel. And there is no doubt that Israel is the most powerful nation in that entire region. And not only is it powerful, not only does it have the armed forces and the weaponry, it also has massive military intelligence. And by that, I do mean spycraft and the kind of intelligence gathering that is often referred to with intelligence services. But I just mean Israel by

basically being at war for almost all of its existence since 1948, 1949, it has an enormous intelligence about war built in to the entire society. One of the things you need to watch here, by the way, is when you talk to people in Israel, they now know exactly where the shelters are, they know exactly where to go, they know exactly what this particular warning means, and the Israeli people are so determined to preserve Israel that they are willing to endure this kind of life under those kinds of circumstances. So it is going to be very interesting to see what happens, and there are clear decisions to be made. But it's also clear that in the fog of war, there is less clarity than any of us would want. I think President Trump began this with at least some

clarity in mind, but you know what? The course of war is, just as about every military historian will tell you, contact with reality is messy. And furthermore, things change. Even the priorities of the United States and the priorities of Israel in this military action may necessarily change. The priorities of Iran, the strategies of Iran are changing right before our eyes. And you can say, well, on the part of Iran, those changes are at least partly necessary because of, let's just say, disappearing personnel, especially when it comes to national leadership. And one other thing is, Christians we've had to consider is the fact that in this world matters economic are matters of national security. And so when you talk about, for instance,

shutting down the strait of Hormuzan, shutting down something like 20% of the world's petroleum capacity. You're talking about an economic threat to the United States, to our allies, an economic threat to much of the world, including Europe, that could be, at least at some point, an existential threat. That's something most Americans don't even think about. But a massive economic collapse that could come about by this kind of catalyst, it would be absolutely catastrophic for the United States. and that catastrophic effect could continue not only through the next few years, but it could have generational impacts. So there are great issues at stake, and I think most Americans, and that includes a lot of American Christians, we just want to get from this day to the next day, take care of our children, you know, go to school, go to work. We are living in times, however, in which the volatility

has been, for a long time, greater than most American Christians really, I think, want to admit. And in this sense, at least in terms of a current vulnerability and exposure, I think we do share some thoughts right now that many people around the world have every single day and have for their entire lifetimes. So we have big issues at stake and we'll have to be following these things together. One final issue we should think about at this point. And that is the United States and Israel, we're talking about joint military action. Okay, what does joint mean? You know, there are some who are arguing that Israel basically forced the United States into this military action. And there are some who've been making this argument for a long time.

I think it's deeply rooted in antipathy to Israel. Some of it is rooted, I think, in some historic anti-Semitism. Some of it is just rooted in the fact that there are those who simply claimed that Israel has now and before trapped the United States or tricked the United States into some kind of joint military action. I'll simply say, I don't believe that's plausible once you look at the larger picture and understand what the United States has, what a president of the United States has just in terms of intelligence and military capacity and military knowledge. I don't think this is something in which the United States could be trapped, so to speak, by Israel. it is also true that to an extent many Americans don't understand the fate of Israel and the fate of the United States are tied together in ways that I think many Americans either take for granted or just don't even see. And this means that simultaneously we have to affirm that both Israel and the United States are sovereign nations with their own national interest.

Israel has its own national interest. The United States has its national interest. That's not wrong. That's simply right. That's the way nation states work. we have a very great commonality in terms of that national interest. You think of a Venn diagram that's two different circles and they intersect. That common area is absolutely massive. It is interesting, however, to note a pattern that's already clear in this joint military action. Israel is taking certain actions such as the elimination of those military leaders just in the last, say, 48 hours, and it is taking credit for them and making very clear that was an Israeli action. And that's not incidental to this story.

The United States has its national interests, our national interest, and our president is charged in terms of his constitutional responsibility with guarding that national interest. Israel has its national interests. Those combine in such a way that this joint military effort makes clear. But even looking at the end game, let's just brace ourselves, Israel and the United States. States could have different end games for how this joint military effort comes to an end or moves to a next stage. And that's because Israel is there, this is something American Christians just need to understand. Israel is there in that part of the world all the time, 24 hours a day.

The United States can be present, at least in a large representation, in that part of the world when we choose to be, or as a president will say, when we have to be. Israel's very existence is threatened by Iran, located there in that area, still close enough, of course, that those Iranian weapons can get through to Israel and have before. And it is a threat through that entire region. One of the greatest sources of terrorism and instability and subversion. The United States faces a threat from Iran, and we are in a renewed understanding what that threat might be. be but it's not the same threat for Israel it is an existential threat for the United States it's a very serious threat I think we just need to understand

those are not the same thing well all right a lot going on in the United States let's just come back and and look at some big worldview issues here in the US Sunday night the Academy Awards the Oscars a moral fiasco is always and so as Christians we understand yeah okay it was Hollywood at its most Hollywood and I'm not going to go into detail about who wore what or was with whom or said what. I'm simply going to say that it was Hollywood at its Hollywoodsiest. That's just what it does. It's the most self-congratulatory event, perhaps in all of American culture. And there were some poignant moments of the memorial to Rob Reiner and his wife and some other things like that. A memorial to Robert Redford undertaken by

Barbara Streisand, who had been his co-star. famously in a movie from Hollywood's Golden Age, as it was called. You look at this and you recognize, okay, there's some, there's some emotional moments, but most of it was just Hollywood being Hollywood. But there are some very interesting things here. For example, you had a lot of political messaging, and it was all basically anti-Trump. Much of it, I would say even anti-American in a very real sense. And, of course, the issue of Israel is very much there. And I think the Trump, along those lines is rather troubling when it comes to Hollywood. But I want to refer to one issue, and that is whether or not Americans care about the politics of Hollywood actors. Do we care or

do we not care? Actually, there's a very interesting history here. If you go back, for example, to the period of the Second World War, at that point, national unity meant that everyone was on the same side. So you really didn't have much of a divide at all. That changed in the 1950s where you had a good number of people connected to Hollywood who went pretty far left. And some of them went even further left. And so there was not only a red scare, as it was called, there was a genuine red threat, communist threat. And the entertainment industries always leaned left.

It, by the way, has done so long before the United States in the 1950s. You could take Weimar Germany, the period in the early 20th century in Berlin. You can look at Paris and other places where, yes, the artistic theater crowd, what became the movie and film crowd, leans left, not uniformly, not 100%, but there's no doubt the industry has leaned significantly to the left. And Hollywood's moral instincts are significantly to the left. You move forward into the 1960s and the explosive issues, you had civil rights, of course, but the big issue is Vietnam. And so you had actors and actresses and activism. Just think of Jane Fonda. Hanoi Jane, as she became known.

very famous actress and of course the daughter of actor Peter Fonda, very much a part of the Hollywood establishment. And ever since the 1960s, she's just been associated with the far left. In many ways, the kind of ludicrous left, but nonetheless, the far left. And then you come to even more contemporary times and you look at just about every single issue, DEI, you just go down the list, LGBTQ, abortion rights and all the rest, most of Hollywood way out there. and as we discussed often, the theme of Hollywood and the larger entertainment world has increasingly been transgression, moral transgression. You break down one barrier, then you push another barrier, you use this word, then use it 50 times, and then you use the entire vocabulary. It's just one thing after another.

But do Americans care when it comes to political issues, say the war right now, the military action that is being undertaken against Iran, would Hollywood's speak to this? Well, of course, you know the story by now. I think it's very interesting that the New York Times ran an article. Here's the headline, yes, the world cares what actors think about politics. Daniel Kelman is the author. He is identified as quote a German author and playwright, whose latest novel, the director is about the German film industry under Nazi rule. Okay. So the bottom line here is the statement. Yes, the world cares what actors think about politics. And you know, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say, number one, Christians need. to keep in mind relative expertise, which is to say we wouldn't ask a Hollywood actor just on the

basis of being a Hollywood figure for information on the proper interpretation of Romans Chapter 9. In other words, there's no demonstrated expertise. We would actually be shocked if a Hollywood figure had much knowledge about Romans Chapter 9. However, it is interesting that Hollywood is sought for absolute advice and admonishment on issues related to human sexuality, the gender binary or non-binary. Go to the entire list. On sex, guess what? Hollywood is on the front lines of giving advice and admonition and pushing the revolution. When it comes to other moral issues, Hollywood is loud, very, very loud. But when it comes, for instance, to war and peace and military strategy and these kinds of issues, I mean, the bottom line is, I think it's the,

this point, the people who listen to Hollywood are the people who listen to Hollywood. But you know what? There's also something else that's really big about this. And that is the decline, relatively speaking, of Hollywood in terms of the larger culture. And this is a big issue for Hollywood. As a matter of fact, the Screen Actors Guild and others have put out comments and reports right at the time of the Oscar ceremony saying that, look, we don't expect the film industry really to expand. no one really believes that it's going to expand in the United States. By almost any estimation, it has contracted a great deal and will contract further. As a matter of fact, some informed sources are coming out saying that, you know, there have always been young actors and actresses

who have basically, you know, gone without in order to look for their big break. The breaks are going to be fewer and the proportional income is going to be lesser. And a part of this is because there is a surprise in the information economy, in the entertainment economy, and the surprise development is this. Yes, there's much more of it. There's so much more of it. An explosion of options. You've got all these different platforms and all these different digital services and all these different capabilities. And quite honestly, no one person can keep up with this at all. We've lost, I'm not saying this is a tremendous loss, but we have lost a national vernacular based upon, say, common television shows and movies and all the rest.

But the bottom line is that the net money, the net economy, really probably has been saturated and isn't going to grow much. If it's going to grow, it's likely to grow outside the United States, which is to say, you're going to have a declining income stream for actors and actresses. There will be a few, a few who are going to go big and make a lot of money. But there are going to be fewer than before. And when you're talking about a lot of people who are basically, you know, struggling to get by, that list is likely to get longer, not shorter. But one bottom line issue on this is I just do believe,

and I think this is a very healthy thing, that fewer Americans care what Hollywood figures think about the most pressing issues of the day. And I'll just say in terms of the health of our culture, that is net a very, very good thing. One final thought for today, you're looking at the expanding world of gambling. And by the way, it's just even hard to keep up with some of the new realities. Sometimes openly admitted is gambling and other times not. And we've discussed that. But I want us to think today about a headline that came in the New York Times.

Listen to this. New Jersey is reconsidering authorizing new casinos outside Atlantic City. The big point here is that New Jersey was the second state to get into legalized gambling, this set up eventually a challenge at the Supreme Court that led to the striking down of Congress offering the ability of gambling only to the states of Nevada and New Jersey. But the interesting thing is that you now have a competition for limited dollars when it comes to gambling. But there are big dollars. And New York City is getting into it in a big way. And New York City is talking about some massive casinos.

And they're described in the New York Times as three new multi-bibilings. billion dollar casinos. I wait just a minute. Three new multi-billion dollar casinos. Just think about how much is being invested in that industry. Just think about how many people have to be enticed into the very deep moral problem of gambling just to justify in any sense that kind of expense. And then you realize that it's a war. New Jersey wants to be a bigger player in that war. And so New Jersey is reconsidering new casinos outside Atlantic City. And you can hear how the argument comes. We can't afford for New Jersey and New Jersey citizens and the New Jersey government to lose all that money that's now going to be going to New York City. Meanwhile, New York City is saying, you know, we're building them bigger and

better than ever seen before. You come. Some reports indicate that the casinos there in New York City, these multi-billion dollar casinos are going to rival any entertainment center ever considered in all of human history. That's their advanced publicity, and the money, at least, seems to be behind it. My point from a biblical worldview is just this. Once you get into competition in this kind of perverse market, the fact is that this is a never-ending investment in an ever-diminishing income stream in which eventually, by the way, the gig is going to be up. And when that happens, I hope the taxpayers in both New York and New Jersey and other states and similar kind of activities understand that the house always wins.

And in this case, the house isn't you. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or on Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsketeS.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.