The Headlines - Trump Backs Down on Iran, and an A.I. ‘Reckoning’

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Plus, the great pistachio gamble.  Here’s what we’re covering: Iran War Live Updates: 2-Week Cease-Fire Takes Hold, by The New York Times How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran, by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman Think Airfares Are High? Brace Yourself for Bag Fees and Fuel Surcharges., by Christine Chung Anthropic Claims Its New A.I. Model, Mythos, Is a Cybersecurity ‘Reckoning,’ by Kevin Roose How a Sapling and a Viral Candy Made California the World’s Pistachio King, by Julie Creswell and Jacqueline Gu Tune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, April 8th. Here's what we're covering. At 8.06 a.m. yesterday morning, President Trump issued an apocalyptic threat to Iran, saying he was prepared to order widespread attacks against civilian infrastructure and that a whole civilization will die. Just over 10 hours later, he backed down from that threat,

announcing on social media that the U.S. and Iran have reached a two-week ceasefire deal. The idea is that negotiators will spend that time trying to finalize a permanent peace agreement. The breakthrough came after a frantic diplomatic effort by Pakistan, which had been urging Trump not to carry out the devastating attacks, and pushing Iran to accept the proposal which Pakistan had drafted. Under the terms of the deal, Iran will let ships carrying oil, gas, and other goods through the Strait of Hormuz. During those two weeks, all fighting is supposed to stop. though as of this morning there have been a number of strikes reported across the Persian Gulf, raising questions about whether news of the deal has reached all corners of Iran's decentralized military.

Israel, which has been carrying out strikes on Iran alongside the U.S., said it also supports the agreement, but explicitly noted that the ceasefire doesn't apply to Lebanon, where it has been attacking the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia and trying to seize territory. When it comes to Trump, who called yesterday, quote, a big day for world peace, the whole head-spinning situation appears to be the latest example of a kind of playbook that he has come to rely on, of making increasingly drastic threats before securing some kind of deal that he can claim as a victory.

If this ceasefire essentially becomes permanent, with no change in Iran, beyond the restoration of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. then the White House will have accomplished virtually none of its major goals. Times White House correspondent David Sanger says that while the war has dealt crushing blows to Iran's leadership and military, the major points of tension between Iran and the U.S. remain. The country is still run by a military and theocratic group of elites who have terrorized their own population. They still have their nuclear material and could, in theory, try to go rebuild and race for a bomb.

They still have missile supplies and drones, not on the scale that they did before the attacks, but we've learned that they could rebuild fairly quickly. And most importantly, I think, they still have a sense that they were able to stand up to the United States and Israel. and resist against a much larger invading force. David has more on the last minute ceasefire on today's episode of The Daily. Meanwhile, the Times has learned new details about President Trump's decision to go to war in the first place. My colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan conducted extensive interviews on the condition of anonymity to get the inside story of the closed-door meetings and internal White House discussions that led up to Trump's go order.

They found three key things. First, a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February really set things in motion. Netanyahu flew to Washington and sat down with Trump and his team in the Situation Room at the White House, and he pitched Trump on war. He laid out what he portrayed as a near certain plan for victory. The whole thing would take a couple weeks. Retaliation would be minimal, and the Strait of Hormuz would stay open. Netanyahu and his team said that Massa,

Israel's intelligence agency, would also spark an uprising inside Iran as a final blow to take down the regime. Sounds good to me, Trump said. The next step was for U.S. analysts to assess the plan Israel had presented, which they scrambled to do overnight. They reported back that parts of the pitch were achievable. They could kill the Supreme Leader and cripple Iran's ability to threaten neighboring countries. But other parts, like sparking an uprising and crushing the regime entirely, were

farcical, as the CIA director put it. Or as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, quote, it's bullshit. Lastly, the president had to make a decision. And my colleagues found that he was basically operating in an echo chamber with not a lot of pushback. Trump was riding high off the quick operation in Venezuela, thinking Iran would go the same. And defense secretary Pete Hegeseth was for it, saying, we're going to have to take care of the Iranians eventually, so we might as well do it now. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State. staff, General Dan Cain, persistently flagged risks, but also repeatedly said it wasn't his job to tell the president what to do. In Trump's inner circle, Vice President J.D. Vance was the only one to make a forceful case against the war,

though he ultimately told Trump, you know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I'll support you. The next day, Trump gave the final order. You can find Maggie and Jonathan's full reporting in the Times app or at NYTimes.com. And one last update on the war, this time on its effect on the global economy. Markets have surged in response to yesterday's ceasefire agreement, and the price of oil dropped sharply, as investors are cautiously optimistic that oil and gas will start moving through the straight again. Still, it's not clear when everyday consumers will get relief from higher fuel costs. Gas prices in the U.S. are unlikely to return to pre-war levels anytime soon,

since at least 10% of the world's oil supply has been cut off, and it will take time to reopen shuttered refineries and repair damaged facilities in the Persian Gulf. And when it comes to air travel, a number of airlines have already added extra bag fees and other surcharges to try and make up for the spike in jet fuel costs, which have nearly doubled. One aviation industry consultant told the times

those extra charges might become permanent, even if fuel prices drop, saying, quote, once airline managers see that travelers will talk, tolerate higher fees and fares, why reduce them? In Silicon Valley, major tech companies have been rushing to release the latest and greatest AI models, promising each one is more accurate, more capable, more useful than the last. Yesterday, Anthropic announced it has a new one, but claimed that it's too powerful to be released to the public. It turns out the model, known as Claude Mythos preview, is really good

at finding security vulnerabilities in software. In theory, that's great. It can help developers identify and patch weak points in their systems. But that means it could also be used to identify and exploit those same weak points. Anthropic claims the model has already identified thousands of bugs and vulnerabilities, including in every major operating system and browser. For that reason, Anthropic says it's only giving the model to a limited group of tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft

so that they can shore up their defenses. Now, claims about a wildly powerful new AI model from an AI company should be taken with a grain of salt. But Anthropic is saying that this could be a reckoning for the whole cybersecurity industry. And researchers who've been given access to the model have called it a significant risk. This kind of technology could supercharge

hackers' ability to take control of users' machines, expose sense of information or wreak other havoc. And finally, 20 years ago, California farmers took a big bet on pistachios, planting acres and acres of the little green nuts. It was considered a niche product back then. It had been around, but it wasn't a huge business in the U.S. The world's supply pretty much came from Iran, which, yeah, I'll get to that. For a while, it wasn't clear the business.

bet would pay off. One pistachio farm executive said there was a market for the nuts as a salty snack, but that was kind of it, just a one-trick pony. For the colonels, the ones out of the hard shells, he said you couldn't even give them away. But then... Oh my God. This is the best Dubai chocolate I've ever had. Pistachios started having a moment. Oh, look at the ends. Look how beautiful that is. Dubai chocolate, which is filled with pistachio cream, went viral around around 2023. Wellness trends also hyped the nut as a protein-rich food. Those factors led to a 60% upswing in global pistachio imports. Today, there are six times as many acres of pistachio orchards in California than there were in the early 2000s. And the U.S. has become the world's largest

producer and exporter. Iran has dropped to second, and that was before the war started, which is snarled shipping. The environment is the thing that could limit just how much the pistachial market will continue to grow in California. Pistachios need a lot of water, like all nut trees, though they require slightly less than almonds or walnuts and are more tolerant to drought. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.