In the early weeks of the Covid pandemic, in those days when public spaces emptied and hospitals filled up, I used to see this magazine cover from 2017 being passed around social media. The story was a familiar one to me, because I was the one who had written it:

The posts were all versions of the same thing: The warning signs had been there, we knew something like this was coming, why weren’t we prepared? All of which was true, and all of which I had been trying to get across in that story, which was itself the culmination of years of reporting on emerging diseases: SARS in Hong Kong in 2003, H5N1 bird flu in Indonesia in 2007, H1N1 flu in 2009. Surely I’d seen Covid coming too.

Except I hadn’t. Through January and into February 2020, as lockdowns and cases of what would soon be called Covid-19 accumulated in China and then elsewhere, I remained surprisingly nonchalant. I assume it would burn out, much like bird flu itself or MERS or Ebola or any number of scary viruses that didn’t quite have the legs to cause global catastrophes. If you’d asked me for predictions, I probably would have said a (hopefully) more sophisticated version of what President Donald Trump said on February 25, a day before the first suspected community transmission in the United States: Covid was “going to go away.”

I was wrong, obviously. I couldn’t make myself see it — or maybe, I couldn’t make myself believe it, believe that we were about to experience sudden, transformative change. And I wasn’t alone. On February 19, 2020, just before Italy reported its first cluster of Covid cases, the S&P Index hit an all-time high, which is not the behavior of markets anticipating what actually happened next: an unprecedented global economic shutdown.

I now believe a similar economic blindness is at work today, with a different crisis.

The crisis we’re not pricing in

That crisis is the war with Iran, and specifically the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The numbers are not subtle. The International Energy Agency calls it the largest disruption in the history of global oil markets, with global supply down by more than 10 million barrels a day in March. The Atlantic Council notes that the 1973 oil embargo — the shock that defined a decade of American economic anxiety — pulled 7 percent of global supply off the market. Hormuz has cut that same supply by 13 percent, and the infrastructure damage from the war and the shutdown will take months or years to repair.

The downstream effects are everywhere if you look. In Como, Mississippi, a 73-year-old corn farmer told NPR he is buying diesel “hand to mouth”; fertilizer is up 60 percent, an increase so steep that he may not fertilize his corn this spring at all. In Dhaka, vehicles are lining up around blocks for propane refills. The Philippines declared a state of national energy emergency. South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam are rationing fuel. Lufthansa has already canceled 20,000 summer flights.

And yet in the same week the New York Times put all of this on its front page, the S&P 500 hit another new all-time high. The disconnect is dizzying. As one analyst quoted by David Dayen in the American Prospect put it, “The market priced peace. The oil system didn’t.” 

How we miss what’s in front of us

So why the gap? Why are markets, and many of us, treating the largest energy disruption in history as just another potentially bad thing that probably won’t actually happen?

The answer, I think, speaks to the same factors that kept me from believing a pandemic was coming in February 2020. Human beings are systematically bad at recognizing the moment when a slow-moving or theoretical threat becomes a clear and present one.

Wharton economists Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther call this the ostrich paradox, and they identify six biases that drive it: myopia, amnesia, optimism, inertia, simplification, and herding. Investors are betting on near-term political resolution (myopia), drawing on the pattern that Trump has often reversed market-damaging policies like tariffs (amnesia and optimism), defaulting to buy-the-dip behavior (inertia and herding), and tracking earnings while ignoring the effects of physical supply chain disruptions (simplification). 

The deeper problem is that human cognition is built for sudden threats with a specific source — the punch you can see coming — and badly miscalibrated for diffuse, distributed ones. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has argued that gradual threats fail to trip the brain’s alarm, leaving us “soundly asleep in a burning bed.” A 2025 paper in Science by UCLA’s Rachit Dubey and colleagues showed this formally: When information arrives in continuous form — fertilizer up 60 percent in Mississippi, propane queues in Dhaka, another flight canceled in Frankfurt — people fail to perceive a shift even when the shift is real. A binary headline (“the strait closed”) would register more sharply. But the closure of Hormuz, like the early spread of Covid, hasn’t been a headline. It’s been a process.

Gradually, then suddenly

But you can only ignore reality for so long, and when transformative events happen, change comes fast.

Five weeks after the market hit that all-time high on February 19, 2020, it was down 34 percent — the fastest correction from a peak in market history, as Covid was finally priced in. The information that produced the crash had mostly been available weeks earlier. What changed was not the data but the integration of the data: the moment when the abstract became concrete, when Wuhan and then Italy and then Seattle made what had been a story about Over There into a story about Right Here. Markets didn’t suddenly become smart. They just became unable to stay dumb.

While I can’t see the Iran crisis causing anywhere near the economic disruption of Covid, I do think we are weeks from a similar shift. In the spirit of Future Perfect forecasting, I’ll express that thinking as a falsifiable prediction: If the Strait of Hormuz remains materially restricted through June, the S&P 500 will be at least 10 percent off its April 22 high by Labor Day. 

You shouldn’t take financial advice from me, but I’m no more alone in my pessimism today than I was in my careless optimism as the pandemic was spreading. Princeton Policy Advisors has forecast a US recession beginning in May; the IMF, which projected 3.3 percent global growth in January, has now cut its baseline to 3.1 percent and added an adverse scenario at 2.5 — the latter approaching territory the world hasn’t seen outside the 2008 crisis and the pandemic. Mark Dowding, the chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay, told Bloomberg last week that the current market reminds him of February 2020: “Only when it truly disrupted our lives did the market see bigger shocks.” 

I missed the Covid pandemic, even with a magazine cover predicting it sitting on my desk. The market missed it too, right up to the day it didn’t. I hope we don’t miss the next big disruption. There is still time, but probably not much.

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It’s been just over eight weeks since the US and Israel started a war with Iran for contradictory and incoherent reasons. Virtually nothing about the conflict — except maybe its stakes — has gotten clearer since then, and there’s still no end in sight: US-Iran talks, set to take place in Pakistan over the weekend, fell apart on Saturday. In a social media post, President Donald Trump said of Iran that “Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none!”

I figured some of you might have questions, so Vox’s senior foreign policy correspondent, Joshua Keating, is stopping by to field a few reader-submitted questions about the Iran conflict.

Here’s what you wanted to know, and what Josh had to say:

I continue to hear people on the right defend the decision to attack Iran as a necessary measure to prevent the regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Is there any truth to that?

Iran has a stockpile of around 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which in theory could provide enough material to make 10–11 nuclear weapons. Iran had denied that it wanted to build a bomb, and the last Ayatollah Ali Khamenei famously issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, but there’s no credible civilian use for the level of enrichment it carried out. 

At the same time, it’s also possible that rather than building a bomb, Iran believed that staying as a “threshold” nuclear state gave it leverage in negotiations with the West and a form of deterrence. This proved to be a serious miscalculation. 

As far as we know, Iran still has this material — the “nuclear dust” Trump keeps talking about — buried underground at one or more of its main enrichment sites. Whether the Iranians could actually excavate the material and make it into a usable weapon before this activity was detected and attacked by the US or Israel is an open question. But having now been bombed in the midst of nuclear negotiations twice in the past year, Iran probably has even more incentive to build a nuke than it did before.  

How likely is it that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed/mostly closed indefinitely?

Depends what you mean by “closed” and by “indefinitely.” Trump’s extension of the ceasefire last week might suggest he has little interest in launching military action to open the strait, or just that he’s waiting for more military assets to arrive in the region. 

Either way, both sides clearly have an economic incentive to reopen the strait — though Iran may have a greater incentive to inflict enough of a disruption on its adversaries that they won’t consider attacking again in a few months. Experts believe Iran has planned for months of economic pressure and is calculating that the US has a lower pain tolerance. 

It’s equally hard to imagine a world in which other countries, particularly Iran’s neighbors across the Gulf, tolerate it continuing to charge tolls for use of an international waterway. But we’re in unprecedented territory here. It’s hard to say anything for certain. 

Aren’t there any options for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz? Why can’t Saudi Arabia or someone come up with a solution?

In fact there is. The East-West pipeline, built in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War with exactly this kind of scenario in mind, runs from Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields to the port of Yanbu on its western Red Sea coast. It has quickly become arguably the most important piece of energy infrastructure on the planet and was targeted several times by Iranian missiles and drones.  

The pipeline is now operating at its full capacity of 7 million barrels a day, which has been an important relief valve for the global economy, but isn’t enough to replace the 20 million barrels that normally flow through Hormuz. 

Gulf countries are now considering a number of other pipeline projects, but probably not on a timeframe that will do much to help with this crisis. 

Ultimately, Hormuz isn’t like other “chokepoints” in the global economy. The geography of the region’s oil fields and the Persian Gulf means there’s really not an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. 

I understand that the war in Iran has depleted America’s stockpiles of key ammunition. How long will it take to rebuild those stockpiles, and how much of a problem is that? (Put differently: Don’t we plan for stockpiles to be used and rebuilt?)

It’s a serious problem. The New York Times reported last week that the US has used more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles in this war, and it produces only about 100 per year. We’ve burned through about 50 percent of our THAAD missile interceptors — around 200 — and we only buy about 11 per year. This has led to diversions of these very in-demand systems from Europe and East Asia. 

This would not be a great moment for the US to get into another major war, particularly with a peer adversary like China. But how serious a problem it is depends on how much longer this war lasts and how many targets the US still wants to hit. It is, certainly, a good time to be in the missile business. The Pentagon wants to invest another $30 billion into critical munitions, including interceptors. 

I’m concerned about how Iran might retaliate against the US by means of cyberwarfare. Is there any evidence that their ability to do so has been affected by the US/Israel attacks?

Iran doesn’t appear able to launch the kind of major cyberattacks that would seriously disrupt Americans’ daily lives, but attacks by pro-Iranian “hacktivist” groups have been increasing, with targets including the medical device maker Stryker, the social network Bluesky, and the Los Angeles Metro. These attacks are a concern, but not on the level of the kind of damage that is feared from ongoing Chinese hacking campaigns like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon. 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: US and Iranian diplomats will meet again in Pakistan this weekend to discuss an end to the Iran war. Here’s what to know: 

What’s the status of the ceasefire? Still in effect and extended “until such time” as Iran produces a “unified proposal” to end the war, according to a social media post by President Donald Trump earlier this week. In other words, likely indefinitely — or until Trump feels like doing otherwise. (It had been set to expire Tuesday evening prior to the extension.)

Who’s negotiating? Not Vice President JD Vance. This time, the US delegation will be led by US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law (who is not a government official, but does have billions of dollars of business interests with Gulf countries). Likewise, the Washington Post reports, Iran will not be sending its leading negotiating partner with the US, Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Instead, according to the New York Times, Iran’s foreign minister will present a written response to a proposed US peace deal. 

How’s the Strait of Hormuz looking? Still largely closed, as the US continues its blockade of Iranian vessels and ports, and Iran continues to bottle up any other traffic through the key waterway. Earlier this week, Iran reportedly fired on at least three vessels trying to transit the strait, and the US seized an Iranian vessel last weekend.

The continued closure means that oil costs remain high as the war’s impact on the global economy — including on the prices and availability of food, fuel, and consumer goods — deepens. 

What comes next? We’ll see what comes out of the negotiations, though some close watchers have suggested that Vance’s absence is likely not an encouraging sign. 

In the meantime, the US blockade will remain in effect: “We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted on Thursday. “It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!”

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Solitude has lots of benefits, my colleague Allie Volpe reports — but it’s best if you do it right, and don’t overdo it. You can read her excellent advice here with a gift link (think of it as advice on how to log off better).

As always, thanks for reading! Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you right back here on Monday.

Earlier this year, Yonatan Levi left his home country of Israel to observe the Hungarian election. Levi, a scholar at the center-left think tank Molad, had traveled with a group of parliamentarians and activists to study how opposition leader Péter Magyar was running a winning campaign against an authoritarian prime minister.

This was, in their view, a vital mission ahead of their own elections this year. Levi and his colleagues see, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a kindred spirit to Hungary’s defeated autocrat. Israel “is not the Middle East’s Hungary yet,” Levi says. But, he added, “it’s getting closer and closer.” 

Indeed, opposition parties are bullish on taking down Netanyahu — and defending democracy is central to their campaign.

Americans know, and generally dislike, Netanyahu based on his foreign policy: the brutality in Gaza or more recent lobbying for the ruinous Iran war. But inside Israel, Netanyahu’s opponents are most animated by domestic issues: specifically, a fear that his ultimate aim is to demolish Israel’s remaining democratic institutions and stay in power indefinitely.

This is a reasonable concern. Netanyahu’s government has put cronies in charge of Israel’s security services, demonized the Arab minority, persecuted left-wing activists, and pushed legislation that would put the judiciary under his control. He is currently on trial for corruption — with the most serious charges stemming from a scheme to trade regulatory favors for favorable news coverage from a major Israeli outlet. President Donald Trump is actively pushing Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who holds a more ceremonial position, to grant him a pardon.

Netanyahu’s tactics come directly from the playbook Viktor Orbán used to hold power in Hungary for nearly 20 years — and the two leaders know each other well. So much like in the United States, Orbán’s Hungary has become a major part of Israeli public discourse: a boogeyman for the center-left and an aspirational model for the Netanyahu-aligned right. 

“I’ve never seen a foreign election being covered so closely [in the Israeli press] — except for US elections,” Levi says. 

At present, Israelis expect a similar outcome. Polls consistently show that Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for all but one year since 2009, would lose his governing majority if elections were held now — and they’re required to take place no later than October. If these trends hold, then there is a real chance that he will be the next leader in the Trump-aligned far-right international to fall.

How Netanyahu could lose — and why he might not

Whenever anyone talks about Israeli democracy, there are at least two giant and important asterisks attached.

The first, of course, is the Palestinians. In the West Bank, they live under Israeli military occupation, unable to vote in Israeli elections and yet still subject to the harsh rules imposed on them by IDF leadership. And the situation is even worse in Gaza.  

For Israeli citizens, Jewish and Arab alike, political life is meaningfully democratic: Elections are generally free of fraud and opposition parties compete openly under relatively fair conditions. Netanyahu’s authoritarian impulses have often been limited by his small-and-rickety electoral coalitions; his Likud party has never enjoyed a margin in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) akin to Orbán’s two-thirds majority in the Hungarian legislature.

Yet here’s our second asterisk: Despite Netanyahu’s weakness relative to someone like Orbán, the quality of Israeli democracy has degraded substantially under his watch.

While he has not yet compromised the system to the point where it can be considered a species of “competitive authoritarianism” — the political science term for Hungary under Orbán — his attacks on the judiciary and minority rights protections have damaged its foundations. Dahlia Scheindlin, a prominent Israeli political scientist and pollster, describes the country as only “very partially” democratic for its citizens — though she admits it still remains “nowhere near Hungary” in levels of authoritarian drift.

Delegations like Levi’s reflect the level of alarm among Netanyahu’s opponents: They believe that, with more time in office, Netanyahu could conceivably further entrench himself in power. While Hungary’s opposition might have just dug itself out of the competitive authoritarian hole, their Israeli peers hope to never be in it in the first place.

So what are their odds of beating Bibi?

The short answer is that their chances are reasonable, but far from guaranteed. To understand why, you need to understand the deeper divisions in Israeli politics.

Currently, Netanyahu’s governing coalition controls a majority of seats in the Knesset. The future is not bright: Polls currently show, and have shown for several years, that the five parties in its coalition are collectively likely to lose quite a few seats in the next election. Unless the numbers change substantially, Netanyahu is unlikely to be able to remain prime minister without adding new parties to his alliance.

The opposition is in better shape. As in Hungary, a broad coalition of Jewish factions ranging from the center-left to the right have come to see Netanyahu as a threat to the very survival of Israeli democracy — campaigning against him and his coalition in existential terms. Polls show these parties as, collectively, right on the cusp of winning a majority (61 seats) in the Knesset.

“It is now Zionist, nationalist liberals against people who believe Israel shouldn’t be a democracy, and we are the majority,” Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid faction, told the Times of Israel. “The elections are going to be about this, and the next government is going to reflect this majority.”

Netanyahu has sought to position himself as an irreplaceable wartime leader who can defend the country and navigate complicated international politics, especially the relationship with Trump’s Washington. His critics have countered, often attacking him from the right, that he failed to stop the October 7 attacks and has not decisively dealt with Iran.

However, it is not clear whether this anti-Netanyahu alliance is capable of delivering meaningful change on the issues Americans tend to care about most in Israeli politics: The government’s treatment of Palestinians and its military conflicts with regional neighbors. 

The country’s center of gravity is well to the right. The best-polling party is led by Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who began his career by outflanking Netanyahu to the right on both the Palestinian conflict and judicial independence. While it seems Bennett’s commitments have shifted somewhat with the political wind, he is still the same person — and a coalition dependent on him would be profoundly shaped by his influence.

The opposition’s ideological makeup is not just a substantive problem in the event of an opposition victory, but in some way a barrier to them winning in the first place.

There is a third grouping beyond these two major Jewish party blocs: the Arab parties, who are projected to control around 11 or 12 Knesset seats. These factions are staunchly anti-Netanyahu; an alliance between the Arab party Ra’am and anti-Bibi Jewish factions briefly ousted Netanyahu in 2021 (and made Bennett prime minister).

Yet at the same time, there is resistance from the rightward flank of the opposition from forming a government with Arab support. Bennett has explicitly ruled out doing so. It’s a decision rooted in the political cost he paid for that last partnership among his right-wing base, and a sense that growing anti-Arab sentiment after October 7 would make that cost even higher in the future.

“There are many Israelis — I say this with great regret — who believe that a government should not be constrained in national security decisions by a party [primarily made up of Arabs],” said Natan Sachs, an expert on Israeli politics at the Middle East Institute.

Without Arab party support, the opposition might very well lack an outright majority. If that happens, and Bennett or other prospective coalition members still refuse to cut a deal with the Arabs, the most likely result is that Netanyahu stays prime minister. So there could be either a deadlock — in which Netanyahu remains in office until another election — or else a fracturing of the anti-Netanyahu bloc, in which one of the right-leaning factions defects to a prime minister they had previously described as an authoritarian menace.

This short-term political problem reflects, at its core, the deeper foundational problem in Israeli democracy.

The majority of Israeli Jews want to live in a democracy, but they also (at present) want it to see Arab Israelis marginalized and Palestinians repressed. But this is not a tenable balance. Eventually, Israeli Jews will have to seek accommodation with Palestinians or else abandon democracy entirely. The Netanyahu-aligned right has moved toward the latter solution, while his leading Jewish opponents have (for the most part) either rejected the former or refused to seriously pursue it.

The next election, then, is shaping up to be a double test of Israeli democracy: how it has weathered the immediate threat from Netanyahu’s Orbánism, and whether it is capable of confronting the structural contradiction that produced it.

As part of the shrunken pro-peace camp in Israel, Levi, the Molad scholar, is hopeful for a revival. He thought Hungary’s opposition leader Magyar won in part because he refused to let Orbán set the term of debate and pressed his own argument — in that case, the economy and corruption. With more confidence, perhaps the Israeli left could one day defeat the “little Bibi inside every Israeli politician’s head” and change the terms of the conversation themselves.

But, for now, what unites the most voters is stopping Netanyahu. A victory now only sets the stage for more fights to come. 

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is reportedly hoping to send Afghan refugees to Congo — or back to the country they fled from.

What’s happening? According to a New York Times scoop, more than 1,100 Afghan refugees who are currently in Qatar at a former US military base and who were promised a chance to come to the US may soon be offered a choice between relocation to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and returning to Afghanistan.

Neither option is desirable: Congo is currently facing a serious refugee crisis and ongoing fighting with a rebel paramilitary group, and the refugees have no ties to the country. But in Afghanistan, their lives would be in immediate danger from the country’s Taliban government. 

Who are the refugees? Many of the 1,100 Afghans now stuck in limbo in Qatar aided the US over nearly two decades of war as interpreters working with US troops or served as members of the Afghan special forces. Some, the Times reports, are family members of American soldiers, and more than 400 are children.

Most have also already been screened and approved to move to the US, according to NBC.

What’s the context? The US took in nearly 200,000 Afghan refugees during and after its chaotic withdrawal from the country in August 2021, but the Trump administration ended visa processing for all Afghans last year after two National Guard members in Washington, DC, were shot by an Afghan national who was admitted to the US in 2021. 

What comes next? This is not yet a done deal, only under discussion by the Trump administration and Congolese officials. But it would match a well-worn pattern of the Trump administration trying to send refugees and other immigrants anywhere they can, regardless of safety or other ethical concerns. Earlier this month, Congo agreed to receive immigrants from third countries deported by the US, and at least 15 people were sent there last week.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Hi readers, happy Earth Day! If you’re looking for some actionable ways to help the planet today, my colleagues over at Future Perfect pulled together some charity recommendations here. 

If you’re just ready to log off, I hope you’re able to do it by getting outside and enjoying nature a little bit this evening. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

The facts underlying Hencely v. Fluor Corporation, a case the Supreme Court handed down on Wednesday, are horrible and tragic.

During a 2016 Veterans Day celebration on Bagram Airfield, a US military base in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber named Ahmad Nayeb detonated an explosion that killed five people and wounded 17 more. One of the wounded was Army Specialist Winston Hencely, who confronted the bomber and attempted to question him — causing Nayeb to set off his suicide vest shortly after Hencely approached him.

The Army believes that Hencely’s actions “likely prevent[ed] a far greater tragedy,” because the soldier stopped Nayeb from triggering the explosion in a location where it could have killed more people. Hencely is now permanently disabled from skull and brain injuries suffered during the bombing.

The legal issue in Hencely involves “preemption,” a constitutional principle dictating that, when federal law and state law are at odds with each other, the federal law prevails and will often displace the state law entirely. After the bombing, Hencely sued Fluor Corporation, a military contractor that employed Nayeb, claiming that Fluor violated South Carolina law by failing to adequately supervise Nayeb. Fluor has two subsidiaries in South Carolina.

In Hencely, six justices concluded that the wounded soldier’s lawsuit is not preempted, and thus does not need to be dismissed before any court determines if Fluor should be liable. While all three of the Court’s Democrats sided with Hencely, the case cleaved the Republican justices straight down the middle (and not in the way that the Republican justices ordinarily split when they split down the middle). Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, which was also joined by Republican Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The question of when a particular state law is preempted by federal law does not always divide the justices along familiar political lines. An expansive approach to preemption sometimes yields results that liberals will celebrate, and other times, benefits right-leaning policymakers. In Wyeth v. Levine (2009), for example, Thomas also took a narrow view of when federal laws should be read to preempt a state law, and thus ruled against a pharmaceutical company whose drug caused a woman to lose her arm. But advocates for immigrants also frequently argue that state laws targeting their clients are preempted by federal law.

So the Hencely case is significant because it reveals how each of the current justices tends to view preemption cases. Thomas has long questioned many of the Court’s previous cases, taking a broad view of preemption, and it now appears that Gorsuch and Barrett share some of his skepticism. The other three Republicans, by contrast, appear much more sympathetic to arguments that the federal government should have exclusive control over some areas of US policy.

So what was the specific legal dispute in Hencely?

The Constitution provides that federal law “shall be the supreme Law of the Land,” and state law must yield to it. But determining whether a specific state law is preempted by a federal law is not always a simple task.

The easiest cases involve “express” presumption, when Congress enacts a law that explicitly invalidates particular kinds of state laws. Imagine, for example, that South Carolina had a law requiring all T-shirts to be made with 100% yellow fabric. If Congress passed a law saying that “no state may regulate the color of T-shirts,” that federal law would expressly preempt South Carolina’s yellow shirt law.

Other relatively easy cases involve “impossibility” preemption, which occurs when it is impossible for someone to simultaneously comply with a state law and a different federal law. If Congress passed a law requiring all T-shirts to be made with 100% red fabric, for example, the hypothetical yellow shirt law would also be preempted because a shirt cannot be entirely red and entirely yellow at the same time.

The hardest preemption cases, meanwhile, involve state laws that may undercut a federal policy or undermine the goals of a federal law, but that do not present such a clear conflict with a federal law that it is impossible to comply with both laws. In Hines v. Davidowitz (1941), for example, the Supreme Court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring noncitizens to register with the state, even though no federal law explicitly prohibited Pennsylvania from enacting such a registration regime.

The Court reasoned that Congress had passed “a broad and comprehensive plan describing the terms and conditions upon which aliens may enter this country, how they may acquire citizenship, and the manner in which they may be deported,” and that this plan fully established the rights and obligations of noncitizens within the United States. If Pennsylvania were allowed to supplement this federal plan with additional regulation, that would stand “as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.”

Hencely involved a dispute that more closely resembles Hines than it does the more clear cut hypotheticals involving yellow T-shirts. On the one hand, Nayeb had a job at Bagram because of a US military program called “Afghan First,” which, as Thomas explains in his opinion, “sought to stimulate the local economy and stabilize the Afghan Government by requiring contractors to hire Afghans ‘to the maximum extent possible.’”

Thus, as Alito wrote in dissent, the military had apparently decided that these “long-term foreign policy and defense objectives” justified the risk that an Afghan national might find work on a US military facility, and then use their limited access to that facility in order to commit a terrorist attack. 

In other words, much as the Pennsylvania immigrant registration law undercut the federal government’s broader goals of providing a certain level of civil liberties to noncitizens, Alito argued that allowing Hencely to sue a military contractor who complied with the federal government’s policy of giving jobs to Afghan nationals would undermine that policy.

Thomas, meanwhile, concluded that, while Fluor may have hired Nayeb in order to comply with a federal directive, it allegedly did not comply with all of its obligations to the federal government. Though Nayeb was allowed on the base, he was a “red-badge holder” and thus was supposed to be closely monitored and often escorted through the base by Fluor. 

An Army report, Thomas writes, concluded that “Fluor’s lax supervision … allowed Nayeb to check out tools that he did not need for his job and that he used to make the bomb inside Bagram.” It also found that Fluor failed to escort Nayeb off the base at the end of his shift.

Ultimately, Thomas disagrees with Alito that a state law can be preempted merely because it undercuts the military’s Afghan First policy in some oblique way. In Thomas’s view, preemption is only justified when “the government has directed a contractor to do the very thing” that is forbidden by state law. Hencely did not sue Fluor for hiring Nayeb; he sued Fluor for failing to adequately supervise Nayeb, and the federal government did, indeed, direct Fluor to monitor and escort red-badge-holding Afghan nationals.

Thomas’s opinion in Hencely is consistent with his behavior in some previous preemption cases

Thomas’s opinion in Hencely won’t surprise anyone familiar with his opinion concurring in the judgment in Wyeth, the case ruling in favor of the woman who lost her arm due to a drug’s side effect. In that case, Thomas wrote that “I have become increasingly skeptical of this Court’s ‘purposes and objectives’ pre-emption jurisprudence,” which allows courts to invalidate “state laws based on perceived conflicts with broad federal policy objectives … that are not embodied within the text of federal law.”

Justice Thomas, in other words, appears to reject cases like Hines, which hold that federal law can sometimes displace state laws even when there isn’t an unavoidable conflict between the two laws. The fact that Gorsuch and Barrett joined his opinion in Hencely suggests that these two relatively new justices, who weren’t on the Court when Wyeth was decided, may share Thomas’s views.

As a practical matter, that’s good news for consumers and for consumer rights lawyers. Cases like Wyeth, where the manufacturer of a potentially dangerous product claims that state lawsuits arising out of that product are preempted by federal law, are fairly common. Hencely suggests that at least three of the Court’s Republicans will not support these preemption claims, at least when federal law does not clearly conflict with a state law.

At the same time, immigrants and immigration advocates will likely look upon Hencely with trepidation, as it suggests that this three-justice bloc may also seek to overrule Hines, a seminal precedent establishing that states typically may not impose restrictions on immigrants that cannot be found in federal law. 

Preemption is not an issue that always favors the left or the right. Sometimes a state law benefits traditionally liberal causes, and sometimes it tries to advance a more right-wing goal. But Hencely suggests that the current Court will be more cautious about preemption claims generally, regardless of who benefits from that decision.

Are the US and Iran on the verge of a full peace agreement — or a return to all-out war?

On the one hand, President Donald Trump has told multiple reporters in recent days that Iran has effectively agreed to all US conditions and that talks are going well, with Vice President JD Vance set to land in Pakistan for more this week. On the other hand, after briefly declaring it reopened last week, Iran once again declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, firing on ships transiting the waterway over the weekend, and the US continues to maintain a partial blockade on Iranian ports, seizing an Iranian vessel on Sunday. It’s unclear if Iranian negotiators will even be there to meet Vance in Islamabad. 

There may also be a third option: The current status quo — definitely not peace, but not quite a return to war either — could simply continue for the time being. At the moment, that’s an outcome that both the US and Iran would probably prefer over making what each would view as a humiliating compromise. But the costs of that state of affairs continue to grow every day that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and the region remains under the threat of a return to war. This outcome appeared more likely after Trump announced an indefinite extension of the two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, despite previously saying he was unlikely to do so and despite the fact that the ceasefire isn’t really holding in the first place.

In some ways, the dynamic is not all that different from what it was throughout the weeks of the US-Israeli bombing campaign: a competition to see which side can endure pain the longest. The difference in this new phase of the war is that when it stops is now primarily Iran’s decision. 

Can the US and Iran get to yes?

The main dynamic at the moment is that the US has incentive to end the war but isn’t sure how. Iran has the means to end the war but isn’t sure if it wants to. 

Prior to the war, the US was seeking to pressure Iran to fully give up its nuclear program, with hawks hoping for a broader deal that also included Iran giving up its support for foreign proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen and accepting limits on its ballistic missile program. Trump’s most confident statements to reporters notwithstanding, the latter two goals have mostly fallen by the wayside. This is now a negotiation about Iran’s nuclear program and future control of the Strait of Hormuz — something that wasn’t an issue at all before this war started. 

If Iran had an actual nuclear weapon right now, it would probably not be in this situation, but it’s clear that its enrichment program did more to paint a target on the country than protect it. Even before the war started, Iran was reportedly considering agreeing to major concessions on its nuclear program, including diluting its 400-kilogram stockpile of highly-enriched uranium. The US-Israeli bombing campaign may have made a nuclear deal more likely, but not quite in the way that was promised. 

“The fact that [the Iranians] now have the Strait of Hormuz, thanks to the US-Israeli attack on Iran — that’s nice leverage, which means that they have a freer hand now on making concessions on the nuclear issue,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute. 

Last week, Axios reported that the United States was considering a deal to release $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for Iran turning over or diluting its 400 kilogram stockpile of highly-enriched uranium. This would be a tough deal for Trump to sell politically, though, considering that even this week he has continued to attack the Obama administration for “1.7 Billion dollars in ‘GREEN’ cash” released to Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. But, if coupled with inspections and verification, it would constitute more progress on the Iranian nuclear issue than seemed possible just a few weeks ago, and Iran’s more confident position as a result of taking Hormuz is at least partially to thank for it. 

The issue of the strait may be harder to resolve than the nuclear issue. Iran’s proposal to impose tolls on ships exiting the strait will be unacceptable not only for the United States but for its trading partners as well. The strait is an international waterway, and Iran’s attempt to take control of it challenges the principles of free navigation that underlie the global trading system. But that doesn’t mean Iran will let go of its new economic weapon without getting anything in return. 

The Iranian regime’s main goals in this conflict have been, first, to survive and second, to impose costs on the US and its allies so severe that they wouldn’t be tempted to attack the country again in a few months. By seizing the strait, Iran has succeeded on the second goal, perhaps even more than it expected. But a debate has now opened up over whether it’s time for Iran to compromise and move on from the conflict or to continue to inflict punishment on its enemies. 

In an interview on Iranian state television over the weekend, parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s main negotiator with the United States, defended the talks, saying that while Iran would drive a hard bargain, US military capabilities should not be underestimated, and Iran’s position should not be exaggerated. Ghalibaf was likely responding to criticism from newly ascendant hardliners within Iran’s Republican Guards and to the large nightly rallies in Tehran by regime supporters calling on the government to not to compromise and continue the fight. 

Would $20 billion — in “GREEN” cash or some other form — be enough to get Iran to part with both its uranium and its control of the strait? Perhaps. But as Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group puts it, “the strait has provided Iran with a weapon of mass disruption that certainly has deterrence value. But the new hardline leaders of Iran might want to combine that with a weapon of mass destruction nonetheless.” 

In other words, rather than substituting an economic deterrent for a nuclear one, Iran may simply decide it should have both. 

What happens in the meantime?

Privately, according to the Wall Street Journal, Trump is concerned about the prospect of using military force to reopen the strait, telling aides that US troops sent to occupy the strategic Kharg Island would be “sitting ducks” for Iranian reprisals and comparing the situation to Jimmy Carter’s failed rescue of US hostages in Iran in 1979. Despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s warning that the US is “locked and loaded” to follow through on Trump’s pre-ceasefire threat to destroy Iran’s electricity grid, a return to full-scale combat like we saw in March seems unlikely. 

Even if the ceasefire does formally end at some point, that doesn’t necessarily mean the US will resume airstrikes against Iran or that Iran will resume its missile and drone strikes against the Gulf. The strait may simply remain mostly closed, with periodic skirmishes, a situation some have compared to the 1980s “Tanker War” in the strait that went on for years on the sidelines of that decade’s Iran-Iraq war. 

The difference today is that the Tanker War never disrupted more than 2 percent of the ships passing through the strait. The current crisis is disrupting more than 90 percent. 

“As much as it likes to portray itself as not caring whether the Strait is open or not, the United States can’t afford to have the strait closed for much longer,” said Gregory Brew, Iran and energy analyst at Eurasia Group.

Trump has so far benefited from the fact that the US is less exposed to the shortages and disruptions caused by the strait’s closure than other regions, particularly in East Asia. And the stock market and oil futures markets have been volatile but less affected than one might expect. But a world where Europe is running out of jet fuel in a matter of weeks is not one that’s going to leave the US economy unaffected indefinitely. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is already saying US gas prices are likely to remain above $3 a gallon until after 2027 — after this year’s midterm elections. The relatively bullish markets are responding to expectations of an imminent deal, but they are likely to change if the administration appears to have settled for a permanently closed strait or even an Iranian toll booth. 

Iran’s rulers, for all their newfound bravado, also badly need time and money to reconstitute their regime, replenish their defensive arsenal, and begin the process of rebuilding what the US and Israel have destroyed.  

Both sides have incentive to prevent the strait crisis from escalating further. But the two sides’ positions are still far apart, and as long as the crisis continues, risk of miscalculation remains. 

Though the 1980s Tanker War may have been on a far smaller scale than the current crisis, it notably included an infamous incident of a US warship accidentally shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing nearly 300 people. This war has already included a notable example of faulty US targeting leading to a mass tragedy.

Both the US and Iran may want to keep this next phase of the war as a low-intensity conflict, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way.  

Update, April 21, 5:30 pm ET: This story has been updated to include information regarding Trump’s indefinite extension of the two-week ceasefire announced on Tuesday.

War is nothing new for America — but the way Pete Hegseth talks about it is. President Donald Trump’s secretary of defense often styles the US’s actions in Iran as being blessed by God. As being holy.

He likened the recovery of a downed Air Force member in Iran on Easter Sunday to the resurrection of Christ. He quoted a Bible verse about God blessing war at a recent press conference on Iran. Famously, he has a tattoo that says “Deus vult,” which is Latin for “God wills it,” and it was a rallying cry for Christian armies during the Crusades. 

The head of Hegseth’s church, Pastor Doug Wilson, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King that “I like the job he’s doing, and I like how he speaks.” Wilson said that he can hear his teachings coming through when Hegseth talks about the war. 

It’s been a long road for Wilson to achieve this level of influence. The evangelical pastor founded Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, in the late 1970s. The church has since spread across the country under the umbrella of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. 

Recently, it opened a branch in Washington, DC: An ideal spot to serve a conservative faithful increasingly warming to Wilson’s ideas around Christian nationalism and Christian theocracy, which hold that the US should be governed by Christians according to Christian principles.

Wilson told Vox that he’s been on the fringes for decades. Now, he’s being invited into the halls of power. He recently led a prayer service at the Pentagon, he’s been on Tucker Carlson and Ross Douthat’s podcasts, he’s spoken at Turning Point USA events and at the National Conservatism Conference. Not so fringe anymore.

In a wide-ranging conversion, Wilson and Noel discussed what his ideal Christian theocracy would look like; his desire to ban abortion, same-sex marriage, repeal the 19th Amendment; and why he thinks Trump is laying the groundwork for his Christian nation.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Right now the seat of power in America is President Donald Trump. Do you like President Trump’s leadership? 

Two thirds of the time, I like it a lot. A third of the time, I think: What is he doing? 

A good thing to compare Trump to is: America’s got cancer and Trump is chemo. Trump is a radical chemo treatment and chemo is toxic. Chemo is a system where it kills the cancer before it kills the patient. 

I like the progress that Trump has made on the cancer. And I’m aware of some of the damage that’s done to the healthy tissues by his management style, his leadership style. But politics is the art of the possible.

I hear you saying: President Trump is getting us closer to the Christian nation that I want. He also acts in ways that contradict what Christ preaches in the Bible. And he is often a bad role model, right? Do you have any reservations, being a pastor, about letting Trump off the hook? 

If I did let him off the hook, then I would have reservations about that. But I really haven’t. The president needs Christ. But we live in a topsy-turvy world, because there are some of his policies that are far closer to the biblical Christian position than some sanctimonious Christians who disapprove of his mean tweets and his behavior. 

In the congregation I pastor, we don’t have any Trumpkin, wild-eyed supporters where no matter what Trump does, it’s always good. When Trump misbehaves, everybody laughs. We budgeted for that. That’s bad. And we know it’s bad and we say it’s bad. But we don’t have Trump derangement syndrome. 

When he does good things that thrill us, we’re thrilled. I don’t mind saying that there are a whole range of issues where Trump’s behavior has thrilled me, and others that I just heartily disapprove of. And I don’t think I’m setting a poor example for our people. When I say what I think for, of, about both of those categories.

Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, attends a Communion of Reformed Evangelical Church. And that’s why I think people mention you in the same breath. 

Correct.

The secretary of defense has had opportunities — ample opportunities of late — to speak publicly in front of the American people. Do you hear your church’s teachings when he speaks? 

Yes. 

How so? 

Let me flip it around. I don’t hear anything from him that contradicts what we teach, and I believe that he’s a consistent Christian gentleman. I like what he’s doing. I like the job he’s doing, and I like how he speaks. I’ve not heard anything that contradicts what we would teach from the pulpit. 

He has spoken of the war in Iran in religious terms. He also suggests that God is on America’s side. God is rooting for America in this war. I think the thing that people struggle with is the idea that God would be on board when you see civilian casualties like this school in Iran with the children — [more than] 150 people killed. 

That happens, and then the secretary of defense says: God’s on our side. Can you help us understand why that feels right to you? 

The first thing I would say is that no answer should try to pretend that war isn’t horrible, okay? In any war, horrible things will happen.

But when you look at a regime that killed, what, 35 to 40,000 of their own people in the last month or so, if you’re looking at a regime where a woman can be executed for having been raped? We have a lot of problems, a lot of moral problems. We are not a moral paragon. But if you put this, the Western civilization that we have and the Islamic Sharia state that they have in Iran, I believe that it’s not a morally ambiguous situation at all. 

The war has certainly divided Christians. Pope Leo wrote, “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” What do you make of his statements? 

I’d say he needs to read his Old Testament more. Psalm 144:1, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my fingers for battle.” Pope Leo, before he was the pope, was just sort of an ordinary Democratic leftist critic of Trump. 

Hmm.

And in the recent spat that Trump and the pope had, it was just Trump dealing with a political opponent, which is what the pope was being. I don’t think the pope was acting in the role of a religious leader executing the scripture there. I think he was just stating his political convictions. 

“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” 

That strikes you as just a political opinion, just a criticism of President Trump?

Yeah, absolutely. Because when you have people who are very selective in their indignation…when you look at the kind of violence that the Iranian regime perpetrates against their own people — like 40,000 people dead — and they did it on purpose as opposed to blowing up a school by accident, and the pope is silent on that kind of thing, and then he turns to go after Trump for conducting this war. I don’t see equal weights and measures there. I don’t think Pope Leo is being honest. 

President Trump posted a meme depicting himself as Jesus Christ. He deleted it, but it struck many Christians, including many conservative Christians, as really appalling. What was your gut reaction to that? And then when you had time to think it through, where did you land on that? 

My first reaction [was] — I tweeted about it, I said: Somebody needs to figure out how to put this picture onto black velvet so that it can be blasphemous and tacky. The picture was blasphemous. The president’s explanation afterward was that he thought it was a doctor figure, not Jesus. 

Do you believe him? 

I find that’s a stretch, but I’m willing to accept it. If he took the picture down and said that portraying himself as Jesus is not what he intended, at least we got that. That was a very good thing. But I think they’ve gotta do better when it comes to social media management. That was a blasphemous image. And blasphemy is no good, no matter who does it. 

What is the penalty for blasphemy? 

It would depend. It’s like first-degree murder down to manslaughter. So there are varying degrees. The worst penalty in the Old Testament for blasphemy was capital punishment. 

Let me ask you one last question. There’s a writer, Tim Alberta. He comes from an evangelical background. He tweeted this the other day in response to President Trump and the image: “My conviction remains: God did not ordain Donald Trump to rescue the American church, or revive the American church, or redeem the American church. God ordained Donald Trump to test the American church. And the American church has failed.” What do you think God is trying to do with President Trump? 

I agree with everything in that tweet right up to the last line. I disagree with the last line. I think that Trump is a test. This goes back to what I said earlier about chemo. I think that the tumultuous times that we’re living in really are a test. But in many ways, I’ve been greatly heartened at how many Christians have gotten to work taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the chaos of our times. 

I think Tim Alberta’s tweet seemed to indicate that we failed because all the Christians fell in lockstep behind Donald Trump and, and didn’t stand up and challenge him. But in the world I live in, conservative, evangelical leaders are willing to oppose Trump where they think he’s wrong and they’re willing to support him where they think he’s right. And I wouldn’t call that failure.

The politics of Israel have shifted inside the Democratic Party — and staunch defenders of the Jewish nation are growing scarcer and scarcer. 

On Wednesday, 40 out of 47 Democratic senators voted to block a military sale to Israel — far higher opposition than had been previously seen on any similar measure. It was the most dramatic sign yet of the party’s rapid turn toward a more confrontational approach, and one that Democratic supporters and critics of Israel alike believe is nowhere near finished.

The tally left pro-Israel Democrats “shocked and disillusioned,” Marc Rod of the publication Jewish Insider reported. These divides were on display on Thursday, when voters in New Jersey’s 11th District elected Analilia Mejia, who ran as a fierce left-wing critic of Israel in a special House election. While she won handily, historic Jewish towns like Livingston and Milburn swung against her by massive double-digit margins compared to their presidential vote, a rarity in an otherwise strongly Democratic year. 

“It’s disturbing for supporters of Israel who’ve long needed and counted on bipartisan support — and had it,” a Democratic operative who has long been involved in Jewish causes told me. “It’s growing, and it’s hard to tell where it’s going to end up, but it’s not good.” 

But while the old pro-Israel consensus of bipartisan unconditional aid is clearly dead, reaching a new one will be harder. Operatives in different camps across the Democratic spectrum are unsure how far the current trend will go, and whether Israel faces a mere correction in its relationship or risks fully falling out of the US orbit in a future administration.

The reason for the change, however, is straightforward: Democrats’ voters have shifted. 

Back in 2022, a slight majority of Democratic voters — 53 percent — viewed Israel unfavorably. Since then, the devastation Israel brought about in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks gravely damaged the country’s reputation — as has the new Iran war President Donald Trump launched alongside Israel this year.

Now, a whopping 80 percent of Democrats or adults who lean toward Democrats view Israel unfavorably, per Pew Research polling conducted last month. 

As a result, politicians are responding — and not just those in safe blue states or progressive jurisdictions. The 40 senators who voted to block the military sale Wednesday included several who are from swing states and are rumored to have presidential ambitions: Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego from Arizona, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

The shift has been slower among leaders of the party and its key organizations: the DNC, House and Senate leadership, and party fundraising committees. These officials, such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who voted to approve the arms sales to Israel Wednesday, have condemned the Iran war and criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, while trying to make clear they still support the country as an ally.

But this may not be tenable, given how their party has moved underneath them. The issue will likely play a significant role in the 2028 primaries. The stakes are enormous — and activists critical of Israel feel encouraged by their success so far, and emboldened to push further.

Why and how Democratic voters turned against Israel

The collapse in Democratic support for Israel played out in three main phases.

Back during Barack Obama’s presidency, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party increasingly soured on Israel, as Netanyahu clashed with the Obama administration over Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank and, most notably, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Indeed, Netanyahu came to Congress to give a speech condemning the Iran deal, seeming to align himself with Republicans and infuriating many Democrats. Still, outside of the activist world and plugged-in elites, Israel was rarely front-of-mind for Democratic voters in Trump’s first term or the first few years of Joe Biden’s presidency.

That changed with the Gaza war, which made Israel a constant topic on news and social media for years. An initial surge of sympathy for Israel after the October 7 attacks gave way to increasing horror over the civilian toll of its reprisals in Gaza — and Biden seemed either unwilling or unable to stop it. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders continued to disparage any talk of an eventual Palestinian state, which had long been the centerpiece of Democratic hopes for a durable peace in the region.

“This was a genocide that played out in real time and that had an impact. Kids were watching it,” James Zogby, a Democratic pollster who has advocated for the Palestinian cause inside the party since the 1970s, argued. Still, there was an age divide, with older Democrats much more likely to view Israel favorably.

Now, the events of Trump’s second term — in which the US has twice attacked Iran alongside Israel — has shaken that up, too. 

“Once Trump won, we started to see really massive polling changes among older Democrats who had supported Israel,” Hamid Bendaas of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, told me. “Part of that is the partisan-ization of Israel, seeing Netanyahu as a Trump ally.” 

The consequences playing out in Congress

Now, it’s increasingly a consensus inside the Democratic Party that tougher pressure tactics against Israel are called for — but there’s still disagreement over how far to go, with those on the left of the party pushing further.

With increasing opposition inside the party to financing “offensive” weapons for Israel, the left flank is now pushing to go further.

One idea is to cut off US financing for “defensive weaponry,” such as the interceptors used in the Iron Dome missile defense system that defends Israel from rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah (and which the US has spent billions to help finance). Some House progressives have recently backed this idea — though some of them stress that Israel should still be allowed to purchase defensive weaponry from the US with its own money.

Another is to end all direct US funding for Israel’s military, which the progressive Jewish group J Street called for this week. Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) recently voiced support for that idea. Many observers believe US policy is headed here, in part because Israel is now a very wealthy nation that doesn’t really need US aid.

“There’s a growing understanding that aid money is fungible and that any amount of aid that the US is giving frees up [Israel’s] own money to spend on things we don’t like,” Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, told me. (Duss has reportedly been briefing Ocasio-Cortez, a potential 2028 presidential contender, on foreign policy this year.)

Asked what the next Democratic president should do upon taking office, Duss said he or she should immediately “halt all arms sales — not just to Israel, but generally to governments that have been engaged in human rights abuses.”

Some left activist groups have other priorities, such as urging Democrats to call Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. Bendaas said his polling shows increased support for using sanctions on Israel similar to those used against apartheid South Africa.

“I do think that’s probably where the conversation is headed by 2028,” Bendaas said. “But the realms of possibility are moving so fast, it’s kind of hard to pin down sometimes.”

The deeper disagreement

The agreement among progressives that Israel needs to be pressured more masks a deeper disagreement over: to what end?

Several advocates I interviewed pointed to a divide between the progressives hoping to salvage the US-Israel relationship, versus the leftists who are willing or even eager to outright end it. 

Often these debates touch on fundamental differences in opinion about the legitimacy of the state — between “liberal Zionist” critics of Israel who also see a democratic Jewish nation as an important refuge for a historically oppressed minority and under dire threat from its neighbors, and “anti-Zionist” critics who are gaining ground in left-wing activism and see Israel as an inherently repressive entity built on ethnic supremacy and colonialism.

On the progressive side, J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami told me that while there’s a need to reassess the terms of the US-Israel relationship, he was not seeking to reassess “the friendship” or “the notion that the United States is going to have Israel’s back.”

But on the left, said Bendaas, “There’s a set of folks who are more interested in: how do we actually separate and make the US and Israel less enmeshed in the future.”

The primary in New Jersey’s recent special election was emblematic of this split. The pro-Israel group AIPAC’s campaign arm spent millions to defeat not Mejia, but Tom Malinowski, a more moderate Democrat who was critical of Netanyahu and open to putting conditions on aid. Malinowski described himself as a “pro-Israel” voice seeking to correct a wayward ally; Mejia, the winning candidate, was harsher in her rhetoric and accused Israel of “genocide.” 

Progressives hoping to salvage the relationship are optimistic that Israel’s elections this year will depose Netanyahu for good, allowing for a reset with a fresh face. However, the more dovish Israeli left has long been in decline and polls show many of Netanyahu’s policies on Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran retain strong support among the Israeli people — making a sharp change in approach seem unlikely.

So what then? What if the pressure tactics fail to change Israel’s security calculus, as they have so many times before?

If the Democrats retake power in 2028, they’ll have to try and answer that question.

The aorta of the global energy economy has been clogged for more than a month now. 

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway connecting the Gulf oil producers to global markets — has throttled worldwide energy production and driven up the prices of gasoline, diesel, fertilizer, plastics, and myriad other commodities. 

This has led many Americans to fear that their rising energy bills are just the beginning — and that America’s ongoing conflict with Iran could push up grocery prices too.

And yet, that foot still hasn’t dropped. According to March’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), food prices were no higher last month than they had been in February.

What’s more, on Friday, the US and Iran reportedly reached a deal to completely reopen the strait for the duration of their ceasefire. A permanent peace agreement, however, has yet to be negotiated.

All this raises the questions: Are American grocery shoppers out of the woods? Will we be spared a war-induced spike in food prices? And what would happen if Friday’s news proves to be a false dawn — and peace talks ultimately break down?

To explore these questions, I spoke with Ken Foster this week, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. Our conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

The war with Iran has yet to produce any discernible increase in food prices. Should that ease fears that Americans’ grocery bills are about to skyrocket? Or is this just the calm before the storm? 

So, it takes time for an energy shock to work its way through the supply chain. Many oil and gas shipments that left the Strait of Hormuz at the start of this conflict just recently reached the ports that they were headed for. And many food producers are operating on contracts that are based on prewar energy prices. For example, think of all the food products that are transported by trains or trucks that run on diesel. Most of that diesel is pre-priced. So the impact of rising diesel costs may not work its way into that part of the supply chain for weeks. 

Intermediaries in the supply chain — manufacturers, etc.  — are also going to absorb some of that if they can, at least in the short run. They can’t absorb it forever, but they’ll try for a while. And then, retailers are hesitant to change their prices, due to competition. 

Still, there may be some early signs that the energy shock is entering supply chains. This week, the government released new Producer Price Index (PPI) data. That report breaks the intermediate part of the food supply chain into four stages — the first being close to the farmer, the last being right before goods head to retailers. And it showed that prices at Stage 1 were 6.2 percent higher in March than a year earlier — and 2.4 percent higher than they were in February. Though, I’d be careful reading too much into those numbers, as the data was collected on March 10, so just 10 days into the conflict. 

Is a substantial jump in food prices later this year already inevitable? Or could one be averted if a deal to reopen the strait holds? 

At this point, I would avoid using the word “substantial.” If we see a return to something approaching normal shipping through the strait, then we probably will avoid big shifts in food prices. 

But if the war persists past a certain point, the impact on food prices could compound, due to fertilizer costs. In North America, farmers generally purchased their fertilizer for the 2026 crop before the war started. So it hasn’t been as big a factor here as in Asia. But if the war starts edging into the 2027 crop year, then the impact of fertilizer kicks in and food inflation compounds.

If fertilizer is unlikely to drive food prices higher in the near term, what could? 

Well, energy prices impact manufacturing, transportation, and infrastructure costs. And then there’s the packaging side. 

If you think about our food today, we have such great packaging, which reduces food waste. But it is very chemical-heavy. There’s a lot of plastics, a lot of foams. They’re very energy-intensive. And that’s where we’re going to see pressure in the next three to 12 months, if the conflict continues. 

So how quickly does the conflict need to wrap up in order for Americans to avoid substantial food inflation? Is there an inflection point?

Eric, if I could answer questions like that, I would’ve retired a long time ago. All I can say is that the longer the conflict lasts, the more difficult it is for distributors and processors to absorb this into their margins and not pass it fully on to consumers.

How much precedent do we have for this sort of disruption? Obviously, shocks hit the agricultural economy routinely — there are droughts and crop failures. But how much does this sort of crisis differ from those?

Crop issues are typically localized or focus on a few commodities. So, when they pass through the supply chain, consumers can substitute: If beef gets more expensive, they can eat more chicken. In an energy shock, there’s nowhere to hide. It passes through to the whole food economy.

As for precedents, we had the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which put some strain on energy, but also fertilizer and crops. Fortunately, none of the countries in the Middle East that are currently involved in this conflict are large food exporters. And the current energy shock is much larger already. So it’s not a perfect analogy. 

You’ve written that, to the extent that we do see food price increases from this, they could last for a long time. Why is that? 

Risk aversion, mainly. Producers and retailers don’t want to be the first to cut prices. And they don’t want to pull back and then find themselves in a loss position.  

Historically, we’ve seen that food prices are slow to rise in cases like this, but even slower to taper off on the other end. Often, prices don’t decline at all; they just stop growing as fast. So, if we do see food inflation spike, consumers could feel the consequences long after the shock is over.

After six weeks of fighting, Israel and Lebanon appear to be on the verge of a ceasefire. 

President Donald Trump announced the 10-day pause, which he said would help “achieve PEACE” between the countries, in a social media post on Thursday. The ceasefire is set to take effect at 5 pm ET. 

The agreement came after representatives of Israel and Lebanon met in Washington, DC, earlier this week for their first direct talks in decades, and amid the backdrop of an ongoing US-Iran ceasefire.

The most recent round of fighting began early last month, two days after the initial US and Israeli attacks on Iran, when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked a village in northern Israel.

Israel quickly retaliated, firing missiles and destroying homes in a war that has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced more than 1.2 million Lebanese. In the process, Israel has occupied about 15 percent of Lebanon’s territory; it says it expects to maintain that “buffer zone” until Hezbollah is disarmed, which could take years.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon.

Nora Boustany, who reported from Lebanon and across the Middle East for the Washington Post for nearly three decades and now lives in Beirut, says that the greatest fear inside the country is that Israel’s occupation will continue.

“Lebanon is small,” Boustany told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram. “It can be swallowed in two weeks, and it’s pretty defenseless at the moment.”

Boustany, who now teaches journalism at the American University of Beirut, spoke about Lebanon’s history, her fears as Israeli tanks once again roll through southern Lebanon, and what it’s like living in Beirut right now.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, which was recorded prior to Thursday’s ceasefire news. You can listen to it, and every episode of Today, Explained, wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Of the conflicts between Lebanon and Israel that we could look at from the past decades, what concerns you most? Is it that Lebanon could slip into another civil war as it did in the mid-1970s?

Right now the biggest fear is that — like in 1978 and in 1982 when the Israelis invaded and stayed, claiming that they needed to have this buffer zone — that we’ll have part of the country under occupation. 

This is what got the Iranians involved. Hezbollah was created in 1982 on the heels of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The [Lebanese] government was very weak then. We had the Palestine Liberation Organization and their guerillas, and driving them out took 20,000 lives at the time, mostly civilians. The country has never quite stood on its feet since then.

Iran started spending money and resources to recruit young Shiite men from those border villages and from the suburbs of Beirut to shield itself and to develop a foreign policy avenue where it could pressure the West. 

At the time, the Iran-Iraq War had started. The Iranians felt that the US, Great Britain, all these Western countries were helping arm Saddam Hussein as he was fighting Iran. Lebanon was the ideal pressure point. American hostages were kidnapped and kept for seven years by groups that were paid by Iran. My big fear is that we’re going to lapse back into that.

Hezbollah are fighting for their political life and for legitimacy, and they may come out on top. This is something the Lebanese government doesn’t want and at least two-thirds of the Lebanese population doesn’t want. It means continuous instability, continuous warfare along our southern border with Israel, and an increasing security zone, which the Israelis feel they have to establish to keep their northern settlements safe. 

Lebanon is small. It can be swallowed in two weeks, and it’s pretty defenseless at the moment.

How much is what happened in Gaza plausible in Lebanon?

The Lebanese will not give up on their country easily. But what we saw in Gaza was on both sides a kind of depravity and also a lust for land that the Israelis made no secret of. 

We were witnessing in real time — because of social media and because of Palestinian photographers and videographers in Gaza and in the West Bank — what was happening, and it’s scary. 

Hezbollah is not as entrenched in civilian areas as Hamas was. It’s not in control, but it’s certainly fighting its corner and being defiant and very bellicose. And some of the Lebanese identify with it, and that’s really scary. 

Israel’s conduct has not been encouraging either. What they did on Wednesday, [April 8], in 10 minutes was unspeakable. They killed over 350 people, a lot of them women and children.

I don’t see any difference between the Israelis and the Iranians in wanting to use the Lebanese as human shields, and that is petrifying. 

This is a country that likes to have fun. People like to go out, go to restaurants, go to the beach. There are many universities, and all that is in peril right now.

Do you think there’s a scenario in which the people stand up and say, We’re sick of this. We don’t want Hezbollah to be waging war on Israel anymore because it presents this risk that southern Lebanon could turn into the next Gaza. Do you think there’s a way out?

People stand up and say it every single day on news platforms, podcasts, interviews. 

It’s very easy to settle the issue in Lebanon: strengthening the government, helping it take care of its population that feels deprived — mainly a majority of the Shiite population, not all of them — so Iran doesn’t feel that it can come in and do what it wants. Lebanon needs help. 

And yes, the Lebanese government has been bankrupt financially and is having a very hard time standing on its feet. But we have a very honest president, [Joseph Aoun] — maybe not the most creative or assertive president, but he was the commander of the army. 

The prime minister, [Nawaf Salam], is a judge who headed the International Court of Justice. [He’s] very aware of what international law demands, yet lacking the tools or the toolbox to accomplish what a strong central government ought to be doing.

Saying history repeats itself feels like an understatement when it comes to Lebanon. How do you live with that day to day?

Everyone lives with it differently. I have cousins who live on the Christian side of Beirut. I live in the western side, which is very mixed, very blended, close to the American University [of Beirut]. I don’t go out. I leave the house twice a week to do my pilates class. I read all day. I do a lot of handholding online with my students because they are petrified, and pray that we are going to come out of this very, very dark tunnel.

There are 6 million Lebanese. They can’t all go. They can’t all leave. I happen to have a small flat in DC, but not everyone can do that. People have built rich lives here. We have a rich history here. I have a house in the country that’s been in the family for almost 470 years. I’m not going to abandon that. 

You feel that the country is no longer as central to international concerns. The French talk a good game, the Brits as well. Maybe there’ll be a little humanitarian assistance, which is great. But Lebanon needs much more than that.

American and Iranian negotiators are reportedly getting closer to a deal that would end the weeks-long war between the nations, following the collapse of in-person talks in Islamabad last weekend. In his announcement Sunday, Vice President JD Vance initially sounded pretty hopeless about the whole thing, as you might expect of a man whose dreams had just been smashed. But now there are reports of backchannel phone calls, Pakistani delegations, frameworks of frameworks…it’s all very The Diplomat. 

Incidentally, my colleagues at the Today, Explained podcast just scored a fascinating interview with an actual diplomat: Wendy Sherman, the former deputy secretary of state and President Barack Obama’s top negotiator for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. So this morning, we’re turning to Sherman to (try to) understand the Trump administration’s screwups in Iran in 2026.

In her new interview with Vox’s Noel King, Sherman cautioned against being too “reductive” in discussing the outcomes of the war or the talks. (Iran has absolutely been weakened, she said.) But she outlined five areas where the Trump administration’s approach has, so far, failed. 

Problem No. 1: They sent the B team to negotiate

Nearly 300 Americans descended on Islamabad for the most recent round of US-Iranian negotiations, including national security advisers, regional specialists, and Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation. But earlier rounds of negotiations were helmed by guys like Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law) and Steve Witkoff (Trump’s personal friend). Whatever their merits, neither man holds any particular expertise on Iran (or a real government position). 

To further complicate matters, the US attacked Iran twice during previous rounds of ceasefire negotiations that Kushner and Witkoff hosted. So they don’t exactly radiate credibility, Sherman said. 

Problem No. 2: They pursued a strategy that benefited Russia

Whatever the outcome of these peace talks, no one makes out better than Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the war in Iran is costing the US something like $2 billion a day, it could generate as much as $151 billion in additional revenue this year for the Russian government.

Russia benefits both from rising oil prices and from the relaxation of long-standing US sanctions, which Trump partially lifted in March. That windfall has already eased a domestic economic crisis in Russia and allowed Putin to continue his Ukraine war. 

But that’s not the only way that Russia — and other US adversaries, including China — benefit from the war in Iran. The US will also emerge from the conflict weaker than it began, Sherman said: “We have just spent billions of dollars. We have reduced our inventory of weapons that we may need for other theaters. We have undermined our alliances.”

Problem No. 3: They badly damaged the world economy

At this point, I probably don’t need to list the myriad and diverse ways that the war — and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz — has destabilized the global economy. Just this Tuesday, Britain’s finance minister slammed Trump for what she called a costly “mistake” and “folly.”  

Whatever you make of that “folly” bit, however, the cost was predictable, Sherman said. In fact, it came up repeatedly during the 2015 nuclear negotiations.  

“We constantly said to the United States Congress, ‘if we risk war, it could close the Strait of Hormuz; it could increase the gas prices; it could take down the international economy,’” she added.

Problem No. 4: They did not, in fact, have the Iranians’ “backs”

President Trump initially urged Iranians to rise up against the regime, promising that the US would support them. Now, regime change is no longer a focus of either the US military campaign or negotiations to end it. That’s a major blow to many pro-democracy activists in Iran and throughout the Iranian diaspora, as the writer and advocate Roya Rastegar wrote for Vox last month. 

“Iranian citizens who do want freedom…have been completely forgotten in this process,” Sherman said. “The regime in place in Iran now is more hardline than the one before, if you can believe it.”

Problem No. 5: They actually made the nuclear problem worse

As my colleague Joshua Keating has written, Trump’s quest to stop Iran from getting a nuke could actually encourage the regime to seek out a bomb. Why? Because in the present world (dis)order, that actually looks like the best or only way to protect against US intervention. 

Meanwhile, if Iran gets a bomb, other countries will want one too — including close US allies, Sherman said. So the world may ultimately become more likely to see a nuclear attack because of Trump’s war.

The bottom line? “The United States, in my view, has been set back.”

Listen to the full interview with Wendy Sherman here.