Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, August 7, 2026

Midterm elections are often trouble for the party in power, even more so when the party in power keeps stepping on a rake.President Trump's war against Iran has significantly depleted U .S.munitions, and his threats to hunt down leakers of this bad news don't do anything to help the war's cause.Trump's pick for attorney general has struggled to convince the Senate that he will be at all independent of the White House, and ethics issues in the Republican caucus only underscore the idea that Washington is a dysfunctional circus.Tonight, can Republicans get their house in order before the setbacks really pile up?

Next.This is Washington Week with The Atlantic.Corporate funding provided by Consumer Cellular.Additional funding is provided by Ku and Patricia Ewan for the Ewan Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.Sandra and Carl DeLay Magnuson.Rose Herschel and Andy Shreves.

Robert and Susan Rosenbaum.Jay and Sharon Rockefeller.Charles Hamowy, through the Charles Hamowy Fund.Steve and Marilyn Kerman, Leonard and Norma Klorfein, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.Thank you.Once again, from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, Editor -in -Chief of The Atlantic and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.There have been very disturbing reports this week that the U .S.has severely depleted its stock of crucial missiles in its war against Iran.Patriot missile stockpiles are down by two -thirds, and the number of THAAD missiles is down by half.And mind you, this has occurred in a war against a third -tier adversary.

Quite obviously, war planners in Moscow and Beijing and Pyongyang are watching.what's happening with a kind of happy disbelief.How did this happen?We're not getting answers, straight or otherwise, from the Trump administration.Mostly we're getting anger and threats directed at reporters who are telling the American public about these shortfalls, and some hints that the White House may be unhappy with Pete Hexeth, the Secretary of Defense, for misleading them about the state of the American military and its readiness.Tonight, we'll discuss this mess, and other messes, with Carl Hulse, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent at ABC News.Missy Ryan is a staff writer and Pentagon correspondent at The Atlantic.And Zolan Kano -Youngs is a White House correspondent for The New York Times.Thank you all for being here.Zolan, let me just start with you.You cover the White House on a daily basis.

Is President Trump aware that the war on Iran is not going well?I mean, in a story, let me just mention this because it's very, very relevant.In a story this week, you point out that none of the promises that he made to the Iranian people have come true, for starters.

There are plenty of signs that he should be aware that this is not going his way.Right now, President Trump Increasingly, the reporting shows that he sees this just as a headache, a political liability.He's searching for ways to get out of a war that he started and that has gone on far longer than he initially at least said that it would go on for.The goals, as you noted, just have shifted, right?Really, when you hear the conversation now and you hear the president speak, he mostly talks about success in this war as reopening the Strait of Vermous.Let's go back to the start of this war.

Strait of Vermous was open.That wasn't part of the goals that he initially laid out when he initially made the case, belatedly, to go to war with Russia.in to be and talks about respecting, in some ways, this new regime and this new leadership, saying they are easier to work with than the past leadership, even though we know that the same structure, the same leadership structure, is still in place, even if many of the former officials in the Iranian regime have been killed.

Missy I want to read you something that President Trump just said on Thursday about the munitions crisis He wrote the US has massive amounts of munitions.He put munitions in scare quotes for some reason especially of certain types Additionally large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country's history the leakers again in scare quotes of these treasonous Statements are being hunted down long -term jail sentence will be sought.Give us an overview of what's going on here in terms of manufacturing and depletion.

Sure.Well, the one thing that rings true in his tweet is that there is an effort to replenish these stockpiles.But what I'd like to talk about a little bit is the fact that this is a problem actually decades in the making.and it's going to take years to solve it.These munitions just were not a priority in the post -Cold War era.We were fighting counterinsurgent wars that had different requirements.

The munitions were known as a bill payer for the military.So that was, if there was a shortage in another area, they would you know, shorten the, reduce the number of munitions that they were going to be buying.The defense industry also went through a big consolidation starting in the 1990s.And that really led to an inability to produce anything quickly in our defense industry, not just munitions.But that's important here now.And by the time we got to Ukraine, there were already significant shortages that so much so that the army, for example, warned the Biden administration that it shouldn't provide some of these I think Nigeria and Venezuela.

And by the time we get to the Iran war, I think it really goes back to the rashness of the planning here and the fact that the Trump administration was not planning a five -month war, now going into it six months.It was supposed to be weeks.And I think it goes to the flawed assumptions that it had about the pain threshold Iran was willing to bear, overconfidence coming out of Venezuela and the strikes on Iran the previous year, and here we are.It's a serious problem.As you say, one -third or more expended in patriots and fads, JASMs, all of that.

Right.John, I mean, to add on to this, one aspect of national defense credibility, obviously, is letting your enemiesadversaries know that you are a potent military machine, right?But it seems like the president has squandered this deterrent capability, among other things, by constantly threatening Iran and then never following up.I mean, watch this with me just for a second.This is what he said on Wednesday.

We've hit him very hard for the last few months.But we were all set for the biggest attack since World War II.And they called me and they said, please don't do it.Let's talk.

I mean, I've counted seven times he's done this.Seven times since the start of the war where he has threatened to escalate majorly and then backed off, claiming progress on peace talks.Look, on the munitions question here, I can understand his being upset about leaks of classified information.This was hardly classified information.CSIS did a comprehensive study on this earlier this year and found at that point, I believe the study came out in May, found out at that point that it would take three years to replenish the defensive missiles that were used in this war.So we're talking about Patriots and threats, defensive missiles.

And these are missiles, the Patriot missile costs roughly $4 million and a long production cycle to create.And you fire not just one, you fire two, sometimes more, against a single missile coming in.And we're at a very dangerously low level of Patriot missiles.

Right.Talk about this deterrence problem and how it's being interpreted around the world.

I mean, you know, when you have the president of the United States repeatedly threaten and then back off, threaten and back off, not once, not twice, not three times.Seven times, he'll probably do it again.It creates an obvious credibility problem.You don't believe the threat that a U .S.president makes.

One of his predecessors famously said, great nations don't bluff.Yeah.And this has been a bluff game.Carl, what are people saying on the Hill?about the state of the war?I mean, we talk about the Democrats, we talk about Republicans.

It's caught up in all the other messes that are going on.J .D.Vance came up to talk to Republicans this week, closed door, reassure them that the war is going great.Well, they don't really believe that, and it's particularly not going great for them.You mentioned political liability.

They see this as a real liability going into November and, you know, hitting with gas prices, that sort of thing.But it's also a budgetary issue.There's a real fight on Capitol Hill about how much to fund the war.Some of this among Republicans themselves, like how to fund it.Do you do it through this process that skirts the Democrats or do you do it in the typical appropriations process?So even though it would take years and years to replenish these stocks, Even getting the money to do it is proving to be very, very tricky.

And for Trump, it wasn't the same taco, right?Yeah, Trump always chickened out.

But think about this.I mean, we have this year a trillion dollar defense budget.Which they want to make a trillion and a half.And they want to go to a trillion and a half.I mean, this is staggering.More than 13 % of every dollar that the federal government spends going to defense.

It's hard to say that we're not spending enough.

Right.And it's also easy for the Democrats to say, listen, we've got a lot of problems in this country.People are paying a lot for their food.And you're going to spend this much on defense?

It's an easy - There's also a concern about Among elected officials and national security experts on military readinesswhen you talk about other conflicts in the world munitions are low here How does that impact your readiness?

Yeah, yeah and much less what what the Taiwanese are thinking the South Koreans are thinking the Lithuanians are thinking so I'm going going back to the to the money I think this is why you're seeing such pushback from even from some Republicans about It's not just the amount there is support for increasing defense fund funding.I think there's a debate about how much it should be, but it's about the process, they've given very few details, even to the appropriators on the Republican side are mad about it, and it's basically Pete Hexeth saying, trust me, give me this unprecedented amount of money, and now this is coming home to roost as he went up on the Hill last week to have this closed -door session with Republican lawmakers to say, we need to do this now.

Speaking of Pete Hexeth, how is his reputation holding up on the Hill among Republicans?

You know, I think they're biding with it.They're OK. I think they see him as, you know, the person who's in charge right now, also kind of a scapegoat for things that go bad.They don't have to blame Trump directly.You know, that hearing that he had, the public hearing, got pretty It seemed like he had been told, don't get in too big of a fight with these folks.But by the end, he was really fighting with them.

He has a hot temper.

He controlled it for a while, but it didn't go off.

Congress also hasn't exactly established a trend of pushing back on some of Trump's picks for these past nearly two years in office.

I simply just don't understand.It's like that old joke about you had one job.And this is a situation where the US, as the dominant military, military power in the world cannot afford to ever be known as a place that runs out of ammunition.It's sort of like if you ran a McDonald's and you ran out of McNuggets, you know, the corporateheadquarters would be like, you're not doing a good job of running your McDonald's.McDonald's.

I mean, this is the very serious version of that.I just don't understand why there's no accountability.

The Pentagon, it turns out, is a very serious, big business, and you need to have some experience to be running it.

And that's what even the Republicans who do support Hegseth overall will complain about is his management skills and his lack of management experience.You know, Steve Feinberg is the deputy secretary of defense.I think there's a lot of support for him and more trust in him.But at the end of the day, Pete Hecht says it's a guy at the rudder.

Right.Let me move to another mess, this Max Miller mess.Congressman, I mean, everybody's familiar with this sad drama that's going on.Very sad for an ex -wife, very sad for a child, obviously.The story won't go away, Carl, in part because he won't go away.What I'm trying to understand is when does the speaker of the House say, you know what?

We're in enough trouble already leading up to the midterms.We don't need this kind of drama.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like Speaker Johnson is going to do that.As a very, very small majority and doesn't want to give away any seats, I have said that past speakers would have Republican speakers would have totally eased him out by now.I mean, it is sort of ugly and sad, but he seems to want to stick it out.And I will tell you another midterm issue.This sticks to Republicans, these kind of things.There was another a sexual -related scandal involving another congressman from North Carolina who's decided not to run.

I mean, this is just part of the image that they're going into the midterms with.It's like, who's in control of the place, and what's going on with these people?

I mean, it's a bipartisan issue.You had Swalwell, obviously, forced out of the governor's race.You had the Plattner forced out of the Senate race.

Yeah, but you just used the term forced out.But they're gone, yeah.

And now we've had, we have threeRepublicans that we know of facing allegations like this.One has dropped out.Two dropped out.

Yeah, I'm not arguing that Democrats have better sexual morals in Congress than Republicans.I don't even want to get into that.I don't even want to think those words anymore, actually.I want to move on.I'm just saying that there's a pattern of the Democrats pushing the people out and the Republicans not pushing.It kind of goes to the Trumpian never cede power.

ground.

Yeah, there's a playbook here that's been established in this Trump era, right?And that's to never cede ground, to keep fighting.I mean, I think it's interesting that when the president did have a call with Max Miller this past week, he did not call, he did not demand or ask him to step out of the race, the reporting shows.And Max Miller says that he, in response to the president, who did say, you're going to, this is going to be challenging, you're facing a tough race.Max Miller responded by saying, I'm going to I'm almost motivated by how you responded to the Access Hollywood scandal, right?There is a playbook here that has been established, and Max Miller seems to be following it.

Could Max Miller plausibly win his seat in reelection?

He's got a tough opponent.It's a strongly Republican seat, but he could lose.If the president's popularity stays down where it is right now, And these allegations are horrific.

Yeah.I mean, and look, he denies them all.He denies them all.It's the two -year -old daughter.Two -year -old daughter.

There's also a pattern of other women, including Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump administration official, saying that this is...

I mean, going back to when he was in high school and he allegedly threw a woman down a stairwell.Again, denied it all.But this is a long series of allegations going back many years with the guy.And his own former father -in -law basically says, you know, he's a psycho.And Republican senator.

And I think that regardless of what happens with Max Miller, the sad thing is that this is going to deepen the perception that many Americans have.of politicians as deeply corrupt, as immoral, and here we are right before the midterms.What impact will this have on people?Will they go out and vote?

Washington doesn't generally look great.these days.And for the president in particular, I want to bring this up because he's having trouble, real trouble getting his attorney general nominee through.He might very well get him through as we're live on television right now.But he's dealing with low approval ratings, a weakening economy, the oil prices, the endless Iran, such a seemingly endless Iran situation.And Zolan, he spends a lot, a lot of time arguing about the reflecting pool and design and renovation issues around the White House and and the National Mall.

What is the strategy, or let me rephrase that, is there a strategy in the White House to lift the Republican brand in the months preceding?

It's so interesting you say that, because I remember, I'm on my way to Davos to cover the President's trip to Davos.I can't believe you just said those words.While he was getting backlash, too, from his American first faction.And I remember Susie Wiles came out and said, don't worry, the President's going to be traveling every week and talking about the package that he just passed and talking about policies that relate to the American people.We have not seen the president traveling every week since then.We have seen more often him talking about the reflecting pool in the ballroom.

Out of all of the challenges that you just listed, by the way, and the setbacks that he's facing, I would say one that probably sticks out to him is the courts also coming out against the ballroom construction today as well.

Right, right, we just saw that.

And even the fact that that would command so much attention of him.We're talking about a break between the voters that Republicans are looking to build support with, and the president and his attention and his priorities.

package.

voters are angry at Republicans.Voters are angry at Republicans.They're not angry at me.They love me.They're angry at Republicans.So, I mean, this is the world he's living in.

But look, when a court, when the D .C.Circuit Court of Appeals puts a stop to the ballroom construction above ground, but they gave a two -week period for him to appeal it to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will probably bail him out of this.Trust me, I think at this point, he cares as much about that ballroom getting constructed as just about anything else on the agenda.

Just to connect these points about Trump's vulnerability going back to the Iran war and the munitions, I think one of the reasons this munitions question is so urgent is that there's a particular vulnerability or sensitivity around the defensive munitions and the casualties that the US military has taken in the Middle East.U .S.troops killed in action so far.And the possibility for that number increasing between now and November, I think, is a real political issue that the White House has to deal with.

One could argue that with all of these challenges, the very last thing a president of the United States should be worrying about is interior decorating or painting the EEOB white or fixing the Reflecting pool, but your colleague Maggie Haberman said the other day that she thinks 70 % of his brain space is occupied by That's certainly rings true to me and I've seen it just in my own conversations with him over over the past year my question to you and We're coming to the end of this conversation, unfortunately, but my question to you is the next two years of Trump Is he gonna become more?like Trump the developer, Trump the builder?As he loses control of other aspects of policy, is he going to become more executive?

And let me slightly tweak the question.If Democrats take control of the Congress, what does Trump's behavior look like in those final two years?And there are, I have talked to two people close to the president who think that on some level, he actually doesn't care and actually prefers the Democrats to win control of the House.Because what does that become?That becomes Trump is the center of every story.It's Trump versus the Democrats.

They're coming after him every possible way.The drama between his first meetings with Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and all.And whereas if the Republicans hang on barely, it's like we're talking about who's going to be the leader.

So there's more opportunity for dramatic martyrdom?

Dramatic and also just being the center of it all.But I think that he sees legacy is hugely important at this point in his presidency.And one of the key measures of that legacy is how he changes that building behind you and Washington, D .C.So I think he's going to, as he told me once, what do you think, John?Am I a better politician or a better builder?

I think maybe I'm a better builder.

Well, there you go.I'm glad we can land on that very, very odd note.It is quite astonishing, many aspects of this conversation.Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for the conversation tonight.I do want to thank our guests for joining me. I want to thank you at home for watching us.For more on how the munitions shortage have created a crisis for the U .

S., please read Nancy Yousef and John Lemire's story on TheAtlantic .com.I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

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