What A Day - Trump’s Dangerous Gamble In Iran

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Over the weekend, the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes that reportedly hit more than 2,000 targets across Iran. In response, Iran struck sites across the Middle East. What, exactly, is the United States doing in Iran, especially now that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed? Nahal Toosi, senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist at POLITICO, lays out what’s likely to happen next and why it matters.And in headlines, Senator Lindsey Graham insists regime change is not the goal in Iran, Democrats mostly oppose the war (with some notable exceptions), and someone struck it big in a prediction market gamble on when the U.S. would strike Iran.Show Notes: Check out Nahal’s latest on the war in Iran Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Monday, March 2nd. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that is almost longing for the many, many press conferences and made-up reasonings of the early days of the Iraq War back in 2003. When times were easy, I was 15, and then Secretary of State Colin Powell was waving a vial of fake anthrax in a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Memories On today's show, the U.S. and Israel strike a romew. Iran prompting retaliation across the region. And the GOP reacts to the war, it refuses to call a war. We're recording our show at 5 p.m. Pacific time, and the situation is changing quickly. As of right now, American and Israeli forces have reportedly launched air strikes and bombing runs on more than 2,000 targets across Iran.

According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, more than 200 people have been killed in the attacks. Iranian state media reported that an Israeli strike on a girls' elementary school accounted for the majority of those deaths. In response, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on targets across the Middle East. In a video message released on Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would continue for the foreseeable future. Combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved. We have very strong objectives. What are they? We do not know.

The president also confirmed that three U.S. service members have been killed following Iran's bombing of a base housing American troops in Kuwait. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is, likely be more. But more casualties for what? What exactly is the United States attempting to do in Iran?

Honestly, I have no idea. and neither, it seems, does the Trump administration or its allies in Congress. We've gotten so many contradictory explanations of why we need to engage in strikes in Iran and what we need to do afterwards, I can't keep them straight. On Sunday alone, President Trump told the Atlantic he'd be happy to have talks with the new leaders in Iran, but he also said in his video address that the U.S. would stand with Iranian citizens aiming to topple those same leaders. And remember how the Trump administration said that the U.S. and Israel had, quote, obliterated Iran's nuclear program last year. now they're claiming there is a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, in Iran, the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khomeini on Saturday ended 36 years of rule by a man responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranian citizens. That includes many killed by the regime earlier this year after massive protests broke out across the country.

So what's next for Iran and what's next for the United States as it engages in yet another open-ended conflict in the Middle East? To find out, I spoke to Nahal-2-C, senior foreign affairs correspondent. and columnist for Politico. Nahal, thank you for coming back to Wadda. Hey, it's nice to be back, though, I have to admit. It's sooner than I thought. Yeah. The U.S. and Israel killed Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini on Saturday.

And for a minute, we were wondering who would be running the country in the immediate aftermath of killing Iran's Supreme Leader? On Sunday, we got an answer. It's an interim leadership council. Who is on this council? Well, it's the Iranian president, Mazud Pezeshkian, a chief justice, Golan Hussein Mohsen Ejjayi, and Ayatollah Ali Reza, Arafi, who's a member of the Guardian Council. I learned this weekend that there are many Ayatollahs, but that council is set to run the country until a new supreme leader is set.

How is that decided? Because in my reading, I learned that Hameini, for example, was chosen because the former president said that it was the first Ayatollah's dying wish. it's not like there have been a lot of Supreme leaders. That's right. There's only been two. But basically, when a Supreme Leader dies, the person who replaces him has to be a very highly qualified cleric. That typically means an Ayatollah.

But there's a process. It's pretty convoluted, but it does involve having an election of sorts of the person who's up for it by what's known as an assembly of experts. And these guys choose the next supreme leader. And even if that's

person gets in quickly, they have to somehow establish their authority. And there's no one who's a real clear frontrunner either. So it's really going to be tough for whoever the next Supreme Leader is, if there is one, to really take the lead in the country. President Trump was calling for regime change. And he even told, true social followers, that the death of Ali Khomeini gave Iranians, quote, the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country. If the interim leadership counsel is in charge now and a new Supreme Leader gets chosen, that just sounds like we just keep doing the Islamic Republic again. Is that what Trump had in mind? Because it doesn't sound like regime change. It just sounds like we just have different people. I think we have yet to see how far Israel and the U.S. will go. The signs that we are getting is that President Trump might be willing to stop all the bombing after a couple of days and talk to whoever's there. And if they say, look, we're going to keep our system, but we're going to be a bit friendlier to you and we're going to do whatever you want on the nuclear stuff, he might be willing to let the new version of the regime

stay in place. But the Israelis seem much more interested in just killing as many of the people in this system as they possibly can to where it has to be replaced by a new system. And let's not forget the regime, it's not just about people, right, and who's in it. It's also about the process of who gets to do what. And it's also about how power is allies. So if you just have a system where, you know, they do the same thing, but it's different people and they have, they choose things in the same way and they have the same reins of power, then that doesn't make any difference really in the long run. But if they're nicer to us, maybe President Trump might be okay with that. I mean, let's not forget when he came to Venezuela. Right. He just knocked off the top guy, right? Yeah, and replaced Maduro with Delsi Rodriguez, who's a Maduro acolyte. And I've been by in my reading how anti-Americanism is kind of the crux of the Islamic Republic. There was a quote from Khomeini saying that Iran could make peace with America, but the Islamic Republic could not. I think my next question is we've started to see videos of people celebrating, not just

in places where there are lots of Iranian expats like in Los Angeles and elsewhere, but some small celebrations in Iran. However, we've also started to see videos from smaller towns in Iran of people mourning the Ayatollah. And, you know, it's really unclear how people actually feel in Iran. How likely is it to you that the killing of Khomeini will backfire and strengthen support for the Islamic Republic inside the country? I think you might see some rally around the flag effect. I think there's going to be some people who are very much devout religious people who really believe in this system inside Iran who will say, look, this is a moment where, you know, they've taken away this one guy who's been in charge the whole time. And I don't know how

I feel about that, right? But my sense is that most Iranians were really tired of this particular regime. They don't really believe in the Islamic ideals that it says that it embodies. And they just want a government that's more competent, that's more integrated, into the world and this like moral like thing with the clerics, you know, beating you up because you're not wearing a headscar for whatever just stops. When Hamini said, oh, Iran might get along with the U.S., but the Islamic Republic won't, he kind of was exposing how how not Iranian in many ways the Islamic Republic actually has been. The Trump administration said that Iran's nuclear facilities were, quote, obliterated when the U.S. and Israel attacked them last.

June. Now the White House is using Iran's nuclear program as part of its justification for the current war. What do we actually know about where the country's nuclear program actually stands at the moment? Look, they have not enriched uranium since the obliteration in June. There's no sign that they have done that. I think there's still questions about where the pile of enriched uranium that they had still is. But the facilities have been largely destroyed, right? So for Iran, And it was never about like simply being able to just get back up and running immediately. It was they also had to figure out who all the spies were in their ranks and getting the money and things like that. So the question was, were they going to restart it or not?

And the president, I believe, just felt that he could not believe that they would not restart the program at some point and start to rebuild it. Also, look, part of it is that when it comes to Israel and the United States, it's not just that like they opposed or distressed Iran's nuclear program. It's that they do not believe and do not trust this particular regime, right? So the regime can do whatever it wants and offer whatever it wants, especially for the Israelis. They just don't believe that. When you look at the long history, it's it is hard to believe the regime on the nuclear program. But that doesn't mean that whoever takes charge isn't going to have some long-term plan in Iran to at some point reconstitute that program,

especially after they just see what just happened. I mean, the United States is not going after the North Korean regime, right? And they have a lot of nuclear weapons. And that's probably why we're not going after them. I want to return to something we were talking about a little bit earlier, which is like we have no idea what has actually happened in Iran. And we also don't know what the Trump administration wants. Trump said he was attacking Iran for the sake of the future.

He said he wanted regime change that would benefit the Iranian people that wouldn't threaten the U.S. and its allies and would give up its chances for a nuclear. weapon. But already we're hearing U.S. members of Congress, like, you know, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham saying that the goal of this operation was, quote, to change the threat, not the regime. And we were just talking about how there's a chance that we could end up with a new Supreme leader who just is slightly nicer, but nothing really changes. It seems like the future is extremely unclear. And I know that you and I have both been trying to get our heads around what's

going on. What should we be watching out for in the coming days and why? I think we should watch for how far the U.S. and Israel are willing to go in terms of decimating the people and the infrastructure of this regime. We may not be the ones who are bombing the individuals. The Israelis are. I think the Israelis are much more up front about wanting regime change. But when it comes to the United States, people like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, others, they're much more careful about what they say. because if you put regime change as a goal out there and you don't actually achieve it, then people will be like, well, you failed, right? But the president says 50 different things every minute, right?

So it's hard to use him as a particular standard. The Israelis have also said they are planning to keep at this for quite a while. So they might even go further than the United States wants in terms of the regime bombing. I also think we should watch for what else happens in the region. If there is a lot of bloodshed in other countries, some of these Arab states are seeing their infrastructure damage, people are getting killed. They might fight back. They might feel like they have to. I mean, look, they buy all these like fighter jets. Are they going to ever use them to defend themselves? So the conflagration, the possibility that this could explode is very big. But we also saw last June that when Trump wanted to end it, he made it end. He told Israel, hey, bring back those planes.

don't you dare fly those planes? And they stopped it and they reached a ceasefire. So this is the thing about Trump is he seems to possess some sort of strange powers. I don't even know how to describe it, but he does seem to sometimes get things done. Nahal, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. That was my conversation with Nahal Tusi, senior foreign affairs correspondent and columnist at Politico. More news, mostly about Iran, because, yeah, is incoming. the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on

YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day? It's brought to you by Americans United for separation of church and state. Hey, what's the most slept-on part of the First Amendment? Any guesses? I'm going to say that it's the establishment clause, the whole freedom of and from religion thing, since Christian nationalists keep arguing that it's actually totally fine and awesome to violate the rights of every American to practice or not practice the religion of their choice. A threat of Christian nationalism and rampant misuse of religious freedom is all over the place. If you're looking for tools on how to fight back against this or just want to nerd out with other organizers, lawyers, policymakers, and folks inspired to protect freedom of and from

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and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue, which is where Alex Pready was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes.

but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines, hit home from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of

Runaway Country drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. Welcome home, Team Canada. Boer Routure Chaveu. Bienvenido at Casa. Maligayang Pagalik. Welcome to Zuhouser. Access Storage congratulates Team Canada for all their perseverance, dedication, and commitment for representing our country so well. Our athletes make us proud to call Canada home.

Access storage, proudly Canadian, and official storage partner of Team Canada. Here's what else we're following today. Head aligns. The goal of this operation is to change the threat, not the regime. When this operation is over, no matter who takes over in Iran, they will not have ballistic missiles to hurt us, Israel, or the region. They will not have the capability to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism, whether or a group of representative of the country where there's an election, it doesn't matter right now.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told me the press host Christian Welker Sunday that the plan on Iran is not to end the Iranian regime. And he got very upset when Welker asked if President Trump should have some idea of how he would ensure that Iran isn't the largest state sponsor of terrorism. Does the president have a plan to guarantee that that happens? No, it's not his job. or my job to do this. How many times I have to tell you? What a fascinating response from a man who had Donald Trump sign his Make Iran Great Again Hat back in January as a way of honoring the oppressed Iranian people. The Republican reaction to military action in Iran over the weekend was generally as enthusiastic as

Graham. But GOP members of Congress struggled to settle on a basis for the strikes as members of the administration stayed away from cameras on Sunday. Over the weekend, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton told CBS News that we had to stop Iran from building many more missiles than we could swat down with missile defenses. And Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that this war wasn't even a war, since we were only doing regime change, not attacking the Iranian people. But again, according to Senator Graham, getting rid of that murderous regime is not why we did strikes in Iran. The GOP Senate group text must be wild right now.

However, the formerly MAGA, or more accurately, the people who thought they were real MAGA, weren't having it. Former Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green tweeted on Saturday, quote, This is not what we thought MAGA was supposed to be. Shame! And Tucker Carlson told ABC News that the strikes were, quote, absolutely disgusting and shameful, imposed a threat to Trump's base. What are we getting out of this? We're not getting regime changed to a democracy.

We're not going to eliminate their nuclear program. We are going to have regional war breaking out. It won't be the billionaire kids of Donald Trump and Trump. his buddies that die, it's going to be the children of middle class and poor families all across this country who are going to die for a war of choice, a war of vanity, an illegal war. Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke to CBS's face in Nation Sunday morning. Murphy echoed progressive Democrats who had condemned Trump's attack on Iran, but party leaders took him milder stance. Take Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. On Saturday morning,

he released a statement saying, quote, Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon. But the American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both voiced their support for a vote on the War Powers Act to keep the Trump administration in check for attacking Iran without congressional approval. A few Democratic war hawks already said they'll oppose the war powers resolution. On Saturday, Pennsylvania Senator John Federman tweeted, quote, I'm a hard no, my vote is Operation Epic Fury. Sure.

After the U.S. and Israel attacked, Iran retaliated by striking multiple countries in the region. Over the weekend, Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel and targeted U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. Iranian weapons also rained down on infrastructure in Dubai, setting fire to a five-star resort and threatening the world's tallest building. According to U.S. Central Command, three U.S. service members had been killed by Sunday morning and five had been seriously injured. Iran's parliamentary speaker said in a televised address Sunday, quote, You have crossed our red line and must pay the price. While people are being killed in the war with Iran, others appeared to be. to be profiting from it.

According to Bubble Maps, a blockchain analytics firm, six, quote, suspected insiders are $1.2 million richer after betting on a U.S. strike in Iran. Bubblemaps said in a tweet that most of the polymarket accounts bet specifically on a February 28th attack and bought in just hours before the U.S. strike. And those accounts had not been active before the prediction about the war.

Suspicious? I'd say so. Corrupt, probably. Also, betting on war, weird. But war is exactly what appears to be trending across prediction markets. There was a similar jackpot collected involving a bet made on the Austro of Venezuela's former president Nicholas Maduro in January. And maybe no surprise here, Pollymarket is now taking bets on who will be Iran's next Supreme Leader. Hint, if you are

betting on who will be Iran's next Supreme Leader, you either have a gambling problem, or you are a member of the Trump administration and thus wildly corrupt. And that's the news. Before we go, you see the headlines. I send the war on immigrants. Federal police take Takeovers of major cities, racial profiling. How do we get here? Crooked's award-winning podcast, Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD, breaks it all down. Host Chenjerai Kamanika traces how the biggest police force in the world was built,

and what that history tells us about power, policing, and public safety today. Chen Jensai is also hosting a virtual Cricket Ideas Empire City Podcast Club, kicking off March 31st. Together, you'll dig into the themes of the show, connect the dots, wrestle with big questions, and imagine what real safety could look like for all of us. Sign up at crookedideas.org slash Empire City. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,

contemplate how the Trump administration strikes on Iran have made John Bolton. Yes, John Bolton, deliriously happy and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, not just about the former Trump advisor-turned enemy who demanded the U.S. bomb Iran 11 years ago looking mighty pleased with himself, speaking to CNN's Caitlin Collins Saturday. This is the president who said he was against regime change in the middle of that he was against starting new wars. What do you make of what would you say to them tonight?

Well, I think they made the mistake of believing that Donald Trump had a consistent philosophy, national security, strategy, and policy, which he doesn't. My only regret is that I wasn't persuasive enough in the first term to get to this point. Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and here's your prize, MAGA, a happy John Bolton. Enjoy. What Today is a production of Crooked Media.

It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Sean Ali, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison

and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes, and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolet Avenue,

which is where Alex Pready was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline. That is a human life, and it is all happening right now. do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst.

Then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that in nothing they do, will they ever? be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country

drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.