The Daily - Israel’s Massive Attack on Iran — and Why Tomorrow’s Military Parade Is So Fraught

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Tomorrow night, for the first time in decades, the United States military will put its unrivaled might on display in a parade through downtown Washington D.C.Helene Cooper, who covers national security for The Times, explains how President Trump overcame years of opposition from inside the military to get the parade and why its timing has become so fraught.David E. Sanger, who covers the White House and national security, gives an update on Israel’s attack on Iran and what it is likely to mean for the region.Guest:Helene Cooper, who covers national security issues for The New York Times.David E. Sanger, the White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Mr. Trump’s military parade marches into a political maelstrom as troops have deployed to L.A.Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear program in major attack.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

David Sanger, it is 1045 p.m. on Thursday night. And just as we were finishing Friday's episode of The Daily, we got this major news out of the Middle East. And we wanted to bring it to our listeners at the top of this episode. You cover the White House for the Times, but really you cover the entire world, especially the Middle East. Can you describe the extent of this attack, we're just getting word of, by Israel on Iran and the significance of it?

Well, the extent appears to be much larger than we had really expected. They went after the leadership of the Iranian military and appeared to have killed their top military commander. They went after the nuclear scientists. And perhaps most importantly, Michael, they went after the heart and soul of the Iranian nuclear program, a facility called Natanz where for two decades Iran has made most of its nuclear material, the fuel that you could use for commercial power plants, which they maintained was their purpose, or for nuclear

weapons. And we just don't know at this point how much of that program has been destroyed. In terms of Israel's past aggressions toward Iran. Where does this stack up? It is by far the largest. In the past, they have assassinated individual scientists and generals. They put sticky bombs on their cars as they were driving to work in Tehran traffic. They have sabotaged individual facilities. The United States and Israel together

put together the world's most sophisticated cyber weapon to take those centrifuges that produce uranium and make them spin out of control. What they never did before was bomb the facilities themselves and basically risk a regional war in order to stop the program. So we're witnessing history here. You mentioned the United States.

What role did the US play, if any, in this strike? It's been my sense that because the US is engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran, it did not want Israel to strike Iran in this moment and told Israel it didn't want that. And yet, here we are. That's exactly right. And they continued to say that even today when the president spoke at the White House, he made a mild case that he thought that if Israel acted, it could interfere with the entire diplomatic effort.

Now, clearly the US was completely aware of what would happen and when it would happen. You could tell that because they were evacuating US diplomats protecting US bases in the region. But their statement right after the attacks began made it clear that they'd never endorsed or approved it. And I think one of the stories we're going to have to learn a lot more about is what was the nature of the interaction between the president

and Prime Minister Netanyahu when Netanyahu said we're gonna go ahead. Right. Awareness does not necessarily mean consent. David, what happens next? The last time Israel attacked Iran back in October, and you covered it closely, Iran responded with what looked on paper like tremendous force. Nearly 200 ballistic missiles aimed at Israel, but ultimately, most of those missiles were shot down by Israel's defense shield. They did very little damage, and it seemed to suggest that Iran's military capabilities were actually pretty diminished in this moment. It wasn't really able to respond proportionally. Could it respond proportionally this time? What

do we expect to happen over the next 24, 48 hours? Well, I certainly think you'll see Iran respond. It may not respond all that fast given the fact that so much of their military leadership has been decapitated. By Israel. By Israel, that's right. The big question is, can Israel defend itself and can the United States and other states intercept those missiles as efficiently as they did in October and in a previous missile attack?

And we just don't know the answer to that. But Netanyahu clearly believed that Iran was more vulnerable now than ever before because of those past attacks in October. And the only question is, did he calculate right about his ability to protect Israel when the inevitable retaliation begins? Well, David, thank you. I know it's late. We are going to continue to follow the story very closely. But for now, here is the rest of today's show. From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily News. Tomorrow night, for the first time in decades, the United States military will put its unrivaled

might on display in a parade through downtown Washington. Today, Helene Cooper, on the story of how President Trump overcame years of opposition from inside the military to get the parade, and why its timing with federal troops now deployed in Los Angeles has become so fraught. It's Friday, June 13th. Helene, always a pleasure. Good to talk to you, Michael. You cover the Pentagon for the Times.

You cover the Defense Department, which means when we normally talk to you, it is about wars, airstrikes, military strategy, national security. Today we are talking to you about... A parade. A parade. It's not every day you get to talk about a parade. And this is not just any parade. It is a parade that has taken on a lot of meaning

to a lot of people and raised some pretty big questions about what the US military means and what it's really for in this country. Does that seem fair to say? Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I think it certainly has taken on an outsized meaning. And for a couple of reasons. First of all, the US military doesn't think

that they need to do parades. They've historically not been a parade-forward military. They've sort of in the past looked at parades as something that other people who are trying to prove a point do, not them. And second, this parade has become controversial because of what's happening right now in Los Angeles. You've got the president who has deployed, what, 4,700 National Guard and Marines to counter protesters who are angry about Trump's immigration policies and these immigration

raids. This is a huge military presence on domestic soil. And so you've got this juxtaposition on the west coast of the United States of combat fatigue troops facing off against protesters. And on the east coast, you have tanks rolling down the streets of the capital. And the worry among many people in the army now is that's just not a good look. And we will return to that juxtaposition and the message it may send. But just to explain precisely what we're talking about here when we talk about a military parade that's going to be

happening this weekend, describe exactly what this is going to be and what it's going to be happening this weekend. Describe exactly what this is going to be and what it's going to look like. It's going to be very grand. The parade's supposed to start at 6.30 p.m. in the evening on Saturday and follow Constitution Avenue from near the Lincoln Memorial to the Ellipse, which is like south of the White House. There's supposed to be, what, 150 vehicles,

and that includes 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks. Those are the ones that you've been seeing on the battlefields of Ukraine. They're gonna be 28 armored Bradley fighting vehicles. Those are the sort of troop carriers. They're gonna be four Paladin howitzers. Those are those really big howitzers, and those are artillery units that can shoot miles and miles and hit targets very far away.

They're going to be 7,000 soldiers marching through the streets and they're going to be warplanes. They're going to be helicopters. I think the number was somewhere around 50. They're going to be paratroopers landing in front of the reviewing stand on Constitution Avenue where President Trump will be and Handing him an American flag. So this is going to be a big show in Washington DC but it also is going to be

military troops and Soldiers moving through the streets of the capital and that image is one that has not been in the capital. And that image is one that has not been in America for decades, is one of those things that you often see in places like Russia or North Korea. And that is the image that has people concerned. Concerning, it would seem, on those two different levels you just described a couple of moments ago. And if the United States, as you just said, doesn't do military parades, why is this happening right now at this quite awkward moment to hold such a parade? So this goes back to 2017 when President Trump was in Paris and watched France's Bastille Day military parade.

There were tanks, there were troops, and they're marching down the Champs-Élysées. There were warplanes, there were fighter jets, and he watched this with President Emmanuel Macron of France, and he loved it. So he came back and announced to the Pentagon that he wanted his own military parade. And the response he got from the Pentagon during his first term was, we don't do this, sir. Jim Mattis, who was then his defense secretary, said he'd rather swallow acid. In a meeting in the Pentagon, Paul Selva, who was the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

told Mr. Trump that, Mr. President, he said, dictatorships do that and democracies do not. What do they mean when they say that? This is what dictators do, not democracies. What they mean is that dictators need to frighten their population with these show of ostentatious military might, and they want to frighten their population, you know, with this show of ostentatious military might. And they want to frighten their adversaries too and make them think that they're very strong.

I don't really get the France part because France is a democracy, but it still has this tradition of annual military parades. But the mentality of the United States military has been more like, you know, we're the biggest and baddest in the world and we don't have to demonstrate it to people on the streets of Washington where they might feel threatened. Understood. So the anxiety comes from the idea that when you have a military parade, that the implications for a domestic audience become kind of intimidation, not necessarily the intended message,

but that's what Mattis and the rest are talking about when they say this is what dictators do. That's exactly what they're talking about. And this was part of their resistance to it. But Helene, hasn't the US had a tradition, I'm thinking about my civics books here and the pictures of parades, a tradition of military parades?

It has. So they've been in the more distant past, parades for victories, and you've had parades for a couple of presidential inaugurations during particularly tense Cold War times. There was a military parade element to President Eisenhower's inauguration. The president in an open car waved to them all, the thousands who lined the parade route

cheering wildly from windows. You had tanks and you also had even this redstone missile. Arriving at the White House grounds, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy head for the specially constructed stand. You had a military parade during President Kennedy's inauguration. There's one after World War II. There's a victory parade. These are 13,000, but they stand for 10 million, and they march for many who will never march again. We certainly didn't do one during Vietnam.

And then we had a victory parade in 1991 after the first Gulf War Operation Desert Storm. Already they are saying tonight it was the biggest military celebration in the nation's capital since World War II. The first President Bush was presiding each person we commemorate today gave up life For principles larger than each of us and that was the last time we've had a military parade Got it so Given that tradition what happens to Trump's request in 2017 after Secretary of Defense Mattis and those around him say, we really don't want to do this?

What happens to the idea for the rest of that first term? Well, what happens to the idea for the rest of the first term is pretty interesting. Jim Mattis sort of talks around it and doesn't do it. And then eventually, Mattis resigns, and Mark Esper, who became the defense secretary after Mattis, comes up with this brilliant idea of an air parade. They had fighter jets taking off from air bases in New England and flying over the original

Revolutionary War city. So you could point to the sky and see, you know, fighter jets flying to North Carolina, which is where they ended up. So basically the military is humoring President Trump at that point. And doing it in the least impactful way to sort of the citizens and to, you know,

Washington, D.C. and the streets. But now we've come to President Trump's second term and what he has now is an administration and particularly a Pentagon leadership in Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth who amplify everything that Trump wants and they are much more cheering him on than in the first term where his cabinet served as more of a buttress against some of his desires and wishes. So the army, which was planning already a 250th birthday celebration to celebrate the 250 years since the Continental Army was established on June 14th, 1775.

And for two years, they've been planning to do this celebration as festivals and, you know, demonstrations of athletic prowess and things on bases with music by military bands. All of a sudden in February of this year, a military parade down the streets of Washington, DC gets added to the event. And is it your sense based on your reporting that the president asked for this or perhaps

those in the Department of Defense knowing that he wanted a parade, added it for him or what? My sense is that the people in the Department of Defense, knowing that he wanted it, added it for him. I don't have reporting that says Trump specifically asked for a parade in this term. What I do know is that he definitely wanted one in his last term. And what we all immediately understood when we looked at the date of the parade was that it had another significance.

Which is? It's Donald Trump's 79th birthday. And what did that make everyone start to think? Well, the army says that this parade is for their birthday. They maintain that and in their defense, their 250th birthday is June 14th of this year, but when they turned 250 years ago, they didn't do a big military parade. There were no tanks going through the street. There were festivals and there were observances on basis, but you didn't have this sort of thing. So that explanation

is what they give that it's their 250th birthday, but it's also Donald Trump's 79th birthday. And we all know that Donald Trump really wanted a military parade. Right, so suddenly the motivations for this parade are becoming a little bit muddier. At the very least. We'll be right back. Helene, once the military agrees to this parade on the 250th anniversary of the Continental Army and the 79th birthday of Donald Trump, what happens to those deep-seated reservations that were expressed by the likes of Secretary Mattis and those at the top ranks of the military who were concerned about the message that

a military parade like this would send. Do they still exist? Do they kind of melt away? Well, they absolutely still exist among the people below Trump's senior political level appointees. But this is a different Pentagon than we had in the first term. Trump came into office in the second term and Pete Hexeth, his defense secretary, has gone on an orgy of firings.

He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He fired the first woman to lead the Navy. He's gone after DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. And he's made no secret of the fact that anybody who does not toe the Trump line will be out. And so the resistance, such as it was in the Pentagon, has definitely gone underground. You have a lot of officials who said to me that they're really worried that this could bite them later on.

How so? For instance, something could go wrong. I mean, parachuting into Washington, D.C. is inherently dangerous. And then there's the cost. Right now, the Army is saying officially between 25 and 45 million. But privately, I've heard Army officials say that this could go up to $100 million. And this is at a time when President Trump is cutting all of these federal agencies and laying off all these federal employees and you're having a big debate going on right now in Congress

over this massive, big, beautiful bill and how much it could add to the American deficit. So you know, whether it's $45 million or whether it's $100 million, that's still a lot of money at a time where there's this appearance that the country can't afford it. Mm-hmm. I have to imagine that there's a contingent within the Pentagon that don't think of this parade as just costly or just risky, but potentially as a genuinely proud moment for the armed services, where the president is going to honor what soldiers do and how they do it. Absolutely, Michael. It's a parade, first of all. It's honoring the Army. I had this really interesting conversation with an Army official who said that the last time that Americans really looked at the army was during the horrible Afghanistan evacuation and how he really thought that the army needed to kind of wash that image away with something

that was more uplifting. And this is a parade, he was excited to bring his children to see, he thought that this could be a reintroduction of the army to the American people. And so there are plenty of people in the Pentagon, even those who had concerns, who sort of thought at the end of the day, maybe this is a parade, maybe it's a good thing. But that was all before this past weekend happened. Things have changed now because as you saw, President Trump ordered the now, because as you saw, President Trump ordered the National Guard and then followed that up with 700 Marines, active duty Marines. And all of a sudden this parade idea doesn't feel so good anymore.

My phone has been deluged in the last couple of days with army officials, military officials and Marines as well, who were all of a sudden, without me even asking, volunteering. They're sort of angst about this. There's a lot of worry about what could happen on Saturday and just how it will look. Right. Almost uniquely in modern American history, President Trump is using the military right now to try to stop protests, which local officials say are very small in scale

and very manageable. In fact, Governor Newsom told the Daily on Thursday that federal troops were not at all necessary. And he saw it as an act of intimidation to the protesters. And therefore, you can argue that the president is using the military to say to people, you shouldn't be out in the streets challenging my policies.

And if you are, then the military will be there to counter you. Yeah, and over the past few days, you could even argue that it was kind of a coincidence that the deployment coincided with the military parade in DC. A bad coincidence, bad optics for the army, but that's all it was. But then Trump finds a way to link them. And link them how? We're going to celebrate our country for a change, you know. Well, in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he was asked about the possibility of

protests that are planned in Washington on Saturday, the same day as the parade. By the way, for those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force. And I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force. And he said that anyone who protests must hate the United States, and that they would be met with heavy force. must hate the United States and that they would be met with heavy force. Wow. Wow. That's a beautiful sight. And it's a beautiful sight to be with you in a place called Fort Bragg. And then later on Tuesday, he goes to Fort Bragg Military Base to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army.

This week we honor 250 years of valor and glory and triumph by the greatest fighting force ever to walk the face of the Earth, the United States Army. And he gives this speech in front of an audience of soldiers in red berets. And before going further, I want to say a few words about the situation in Los Angeles, California. Have you heard of- And pretty immediately, it becomes about what's going on in Los Angeles. Under the Trump administration, this anarchy will not stand.

We will not allow federal agents to be attacked and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. That's what they are. He describes a place under siege. In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles. Boo! They're incompetent. And the crowd boo's, which is you're not supposed to do that when you're in uniform.

It's against military regulations to wear political paraphernalia when you're in uniform, and you're certainly not supposed to be booing politicians when you're in uniform. But Trump encourages this. He likes this. You will fight, fight, fight, and you will win, win, win. Thank you. God bless you. God bless our soldiers, and God bless the U.S. Army. And what you seem to have in these back-to-back moments, you're saying, is the president embracing the idea that the military is a political ally, maybe even a tool, in his domestic political debates, which I think

naturally brings us back to what former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said he feared originally about a military parade. It really is. So now the big fear is the Saturday's parade could look like a military that is facing off against the American people that it's supposed to be protecting. There's a very real possibility of the president now presiding over this parade Saturday night, showcasing the US military's most fearsome weapons and most fearsome soldiers. And the message in that context, in the context of what's going on in LA may feel more intended or as intended for a domestic audience than as impressing or intimidating our foreign

adversaries. Absolutely. They're very worried about that. And especially in the former uniform world where these are retired army officials, retired Marine generals, I've been on the phone with, they're really worried about this image. They're also worried about a potential Tiananmen Square moment where you have a protester standing in front of a tank. That is not what America is supposed to look like. And this is another one of those potential scary things

that we could see on Saturday. That's a very potent image. It is. But at the end of the day, it all, though, may depend on where you sit. I think if you're a supporter of President Trump and you see the protests in LA as thugs wrecking property, and you see this as people who are being unlawful, you're perfectly fine with

deploying federal troops there. And you can sit back and enjoy the image of a military that you're very proud of marching through the streets of the Capitol without feeling threatened. I think also though, that there are people who have been intimidated by this administration, who have been attacked by Trump or who have been on the other side, you know, the federal workers who have lost their jobs or the immigrants' rights people who feel like they're fighting for their families. You may feel very different. And you might see this as another example of a government that's trying to intimidate

you and as a government of which you are afraid. And the biggest problem with this, according to the military leaders in President Trump's first term, is this risks bringing the military into the middle of partisan politics. You want an American military that all Americans feel is part of them. You do not want a military that is a Trump military or MAGA military or a Democratic military or a Biden military. You want a military that American people feel is a non-political institution. And so we're going to see this weekend,

whether this parade makes the military look like it was co-opted by partisan politics or if somehow it manages to transcend it. Well, Helene, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Happy to be here, Michael. On Thursday night, a federal judge blocked President Trump from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles. In his ruling, the judge wrote that Trump's actions had violated the U.S. Constitution

and ordered that he return control of the National Guard to California's Governor Gavin Newsom. The White House quickly appealed the ruling, whose enforcement has been paused for now. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday night, investigators were still trying to figure out what caused a passenger plane to crash shortly after takeoff in India, killing 242 people on board and dozens more on the ground. The plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, smashed into a medical college

about a mile from the airport. Indian authorities said at least one of the plane's passengers from the 11th row survived and miraculously walked away from the wreckage. And… Sir, sir, hands up, hands up. I'm Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary because the fact of the matter is…

In a remarkable scene, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed from a news conference held by the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem when the senator tried to interrupt her. All right. Cool. Good hand. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand, sir. As cameras rolled, federal agents forced Padilla

to the ground and handcuffed him. Aids to known said that agents had thought Padilla was a would-be attacker despite the fact that he had identified himself as a senator. Padilla was later released from federal custody. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harbour, Olivia Nat and Alex Stern. It was edited by Patricia Willens, contains original music by Alisha Ba'eetoo, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderland.

That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Bobauro. See you on Monday.