David E. Sanger

speaker

1,917 appearances 16 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 23 Jul

David E. Sanger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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The Daily · Why the Cease-Fire With Iran Keeps Crumbling · 14 Jul 2026 podcast

I think that's right, Rachel, but I think it goes deeper than that.

Coming off of the funeral services last week for Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war, I think that the message from the Iranians was, we went up against the world's biggest superpower, and we survived.

And then they tried to go buy us off with some kind of agreement to give up our nuclear program and give up control over our own territory.

And we're going to show them that we're not just motivated by money, although obviously the Iranians would love to be able to sell their oil on the open markets.

But that this is about pride.

It's about nationalism.

It's about showing that a larger power, an imperial power in the minds of the Iranians is not going to push them around.

And I think you could argue that.

that that was something the administration missed from the beginning.

They viewed this fundamentally as the equivalent of a real estate deal, that everybody's going to act in their rational economic interest.

And in fact, the administration was up against a revolutionary government whose ideology has been hinged for 47 years on direct opposition to the United States.

That's right, Rachel.

But I think they also understand one other thing.

President Trump has said publicly a few times, he just let it slip.

You know, I can't fight this war the way I'd like to fight it, which was basically be putting ground troops on to take the nuclear material, grab Karg Island where they export oil from.

do all the things you would do if you were at complete and total war with the country.

And he can't do it because he knows the American people and the Congress would not stand for a ground war that results in significant casualties.

And so the result is he has been relying on the power of the U.S.

military to bomb Iran into submission.

Then he got to the second phase of this, Rachel, where he believed that even if he couldn't make the government collapse, he could make them give up their nuclear program.

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