JEFFREY GOLDBERG: President Trump's leadership on the world stage is being put to the test everywhere, and the challenge for America's allies and adversaries alike is this, figuring out his actual policies.

As the president prepares for the first major foreign trip of his second term, we assess America's erratic and contradictory role in conflict zones across the globe, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Let me try to encapsulate the challenge before us tonight.

Here in Washington, no one knows for sure what President Trump wants to do about the Iranian nuclear program.

No one in Jerusalem knows if the president has truly just left Israel to fight the Houthis of Yemen alone.

In Ottawa, no one really understands why Trump keeps threatening Canada's sovereignty.

In Copenhagen, leaders are asking themselves if Trump would actually invade Greenland.

And at the Vatican, one likely subject, how will the new American pope get along with an American president not known for sharing the stage or the pope's views on poverty and immigration?

I'll try to unpack these mysteries tonight with my guests, Susan Glasser, staff writer at the New Yorker, Asma Khalid is an NPR White House correspondent and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent at The New York Times, and Nancy Youssef is a national security correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.

Okay, we have to go fast because there's a lot of countries to talk about.

The first, let's talk about the biggest news of the week.

And I recognize that the election of a new pope is a matter of supreme ecclesiastical import, but this is Washington Week, so we're just going to do the politics of it.

I'm very sorry about that.

So, Pope Leo XIV is among other things an American on the world stage with far more followers than the entire MAGA movement combined.

And so one of the questions I have is how is this relationship going to work?

I mean, the president was very kind about the new pope.

He said it's such a great honor for our country to have an American pope.

I mean, what greater honor could there be?

And we were a little bit surprised and very happy.

It's just a great, absolutely great honor.

It's sort of like America won Eurovision or something, but it's -- you know, he was very generous about that.

But I also want to take note of an article that the pope, then-cardinal, recently posted.

The headline that he posted was, J.D.

Vance is wrong, Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.

So, let me start.

David, let me start with you.

Try to look out a little bit into the future.

What do you think this relationship between the two most important Americans in the world is going to look like?

DAVID SANGER, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, I think, initially, the president will probably treat him with enormous respect and -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: There'll be a visit, a big visit coming.

DAVID SANGER: And there'll be a big visit and you know, the president's going to have to like read up on the White Sox a little bit because this is a Chicago pope after all.

But there's all that commonality.

The problem's going to be if the discussion ever turns to migration, if the discussion ever turns, as you said, to poverty issues.

And at some point, you know, Donald Trump's not a guy who tends to love to share the limelight out here.

And I think the biggest problem's going to come if he thinks the pope is beginning to talk to American voters in different ways than Donald Trump does.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Asma, do you think that part of the motivation on the part of the College of Cardinals was to have an American counterbalance to Trump?

I mean, I know that there are people -- ASMA KHALID, White House Correspondent, NPR: I'm not in the mind of the cardinals.

Well, I'll say I very diligently listened to all of the live coverage.

It was fascinating, as the Muslim watching this all unfold.

But I will say, look, I think regardless of intention, the result will be that you have a very loud -- an American with a loud megaphone on a global stage that is not Donald Trump.

And, arguably, under any other circumstance, the American president would be the loudest, perhaps most popular American in the international arena.

And now you have another, you have a counterweight to that.

So, regardless of intention, that is the result.

And I agree with David that I don't think that Donald Trump is one to share the limelight, but I'm also really interested to see ways in which he presents an alternative vision of what it means to be an American this time (ph), because there's a lot of debate about that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That's interesting.

Susan, you know, I remember when Pope Francis and President Obama famously got along very, very well.

How far will President Trump go to make his displeasure known if this pope eventually starts talking about immigration in ways that, let's say, Stephen Miller disagrees with?

SUSAN GLASSER, Staff Writer, The New Yorker: I don't think you're going to have to wait too long.

Donald Trump is not a man to restrain him himself or his views, Jeff.

And I would imagine that the social media posts will be voluminous and forthcoming.

You already see, in fact, a lot of discomfort if you look in the sort of very online MAGA world, especially, you know, very conservative, very right wing Catholics in the United States.

They're not a big fan of someone who's already publicly called out the vice president of the United States on immigration views.

And, again, pointing out that in recent years, this has been a major friction point already with Pope Leo's predecessor, who has also criticized the United States and others for lack of empathy toward migrants at a time when there are more people on the move around the world than, you know, in any for decades.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I mean, Nancy, do you see -- I mean, I think for American Catholics, especially, let's say, conservative-leaning American Catholics, it kind of puts them in an exquisitely sensitive position.

He's the leader of the church.

It's ecclesiastical role, obviously.

But his politics seem to be very, very different.

I mean, is this is a -- is this an electoral story or am I being too parochial in my questioning about this?

NANCY YOUSSEF, National Security Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal: I don't know.

Because what was interesting to me is the church introduced him as the second pope from the Americas.

They didn't introduce him as the first American pope, and I thought that was sort of interesting.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, he has two decades or more in Peru.

NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, he's very associated with -- NANCY YOUSSEF: He's an American polyglot.

He's an American who's really spent a lot of time, as you note, in Peru and also in Italy.

At the same time, to me, what was fascinating about it is how we speak about an American pope.

You know, just 65 years ago, there was a question about whether Kennedy could be president, whether he would answer to the pope.

We have six of our nine Supreme Court justices that are Catholic.

And so to your question in terms of the influence that'll have on the Catholic population here in the United States, I think he really personifies a church that was trying to sort of find a compromise between the vision that Francis had and some of the more conservative Catholic positions here in the United States.

And so where he fits in that and how much he's able to resonate with American Catholics, I think, is going to be very interesting.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

It's going to be completely fascinating.

We've never seen it.

It really is historic, this decision by the church.

I mean, there's things that we used the term historic lightly, but this is really quite a week in American history and obviously the history of the church.

And it's going to be fascinating to watch these two men circle each other and size each other up and figure out how to get their way with the other to some degree.

I want to pivot to talk about a current conflict, not necessarily a future theological conflict.

Let's talk about Iran a little bit.

And what I want to talk about specifically is our Iranian policy or policies.

Let's listen to President Trump talk about Iran's nuclear program, first on Sunday, and then on Wednesday.

So, just listen to this for a moment.

KRISTEN WELKER, Host, NBC News: Is the goal of these talks limiting Iran's nuclear program or total dismantlement?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President: Total dismantlement.

KRISTEN WELKER: That's all you'll accept?

DONALD TRUMP: That's all I'd accept.

You know, civilian energy often leads to military wars.

And we don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon.

It's a very simple deal.

I want Iran to be really successful, really great, really fantastic.

The only thing they can't have is a nuclear weapon.

REPORTER: Isn't the U.S. position that Iran can have an enrichment program as long as it doesn't reach a weapons -- DONALD TRUMP: We haven't made that decision yet.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Nancy, what's our Iran policy today?

NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know.

I'll do my best though.

I mean, he has basically said, I think we're leaning towards this idea of total dismantlement that sort of appears to be where they're trying to go with it.

But, practically speaking, can they get there?

Why would Iran agree to that?

And there's no in indication that they're willing to.

I think there's an assumption that's happening that because they've lost a lot of power and influence in the region between their proxies being weakened in Lebanon and in Syria, and in some cases in Yemen, that somehow Iran is in a vulnerable position.

And I would argue that, actually if you're Iran, because of those losses that the nuclear program becomes all the more important, I think the United States is approaching it as though Iran is at its weakest and not maybe considering that that very weakness makes it harder for them to really consider a program where they would truly dismantle their nuclear program.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Asma, inside the White House, are there different factions on the Iran question?

ASMA KHALID: I mean, I think there certainly are different factions within the White House.

I mean, the other factor I will say is that I'm actually unclear though as to how and what, you know, Trump fundamentally wants.

I don't have a clear sense of that.

I will say like the talks are ongoing.

They have said now they are meeting again this Sunday.

Will it actually lead to any sort of deal before he heads to the Middle East, before the president heads to the Middle East?

No.

I mean, I don't think so.

I mean, these are just ongoing talks.

But I think the White House feels optimistic about that the fact that they are continuing to talk.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You do a lot of reporting inside the White House on these factions.

Are there distinct hawkish -- is there a distinct hawkish group and a distinct dovish group?

ASMA KHALID: I don't know that there's a distinct dovish group.

I don't know.

Does anybody think that there's a distinct dovish group?

I mean, I think maybe Trump.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Maybe quasi isolationist.

I don't know.

ASMA KHALID: Yes.

I mean, Trump, as a whole, I think his foreign policy is hard to parse as to where he himself stands.

But I don't know that there's a dovish group, what I would describe as a dovish group within the White House, yes.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, it seems to me that we actually do know that it's not about ideology for Donald Trump and that, in fact, often, in my view, we overprioritize here in Washington the idea that there is a consistent ideology or policy goal.

Donald Trump's goal, we actually know his goal here.

It's to come out with the biggest, bestest, most importantest deal that there can be because he's looking for his Nobel Peace Prize.

And I don't say that lightly.

You know, this is something, first of all, people didn't take seriously enough, but even in his first term, Donald Trump -- it wasn't what the hawks in his own party or even in his own administration wanted.

He was looking for an opening to talk to Iran in his first term.

This is in part, he sees this as unfinished business from that, and he is looking for a goal.

And part of the risk, and, you know, we've debriefed many people who worked for him in national security roles, as you have, Jeff, in Donald Trump's first term, the fear that his own people always had was that he would make a bad deal because he was so eager to make a deal.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But the irony of that, David, is that the thing he fears most is having his Iran deal be equated to Barack Obama's deal.

DAVID SANGER: That's right.

And when he's seen headlines on stories that we've all done here that do that comparison, he hasn't reacted well to the -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, tell me more about that.

DAVID SANGER: Well, the fundamental problem that he faces right now is that his criticism of the Obama 2015 deal was essentially twofold, that you didn't stop them from being on the pathway to Obama, in other words, didn't dismantle everything.

So, as soon as Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018, the Iranians were able to go reconstitute their program, you know, within a few years.

And the second problem he had was, and this was a legitimate criticism in my view, was that the Obama program was on the clock, and by 2030, the Iranians were free to do whatever they want.

Now, he keeps saying they just can't have a bomb.

Well, that isn't the issue.

The issue is can they have a pathway to a bomb in case Trump or a future president pulls back.

And that's the problem that Steve Witkoff's got to get at.

And it's the one they -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And Witkoff is doing the negotiating on Trump's behalf?

DAVID SANGER: That's right.

He's doing the negotiations.

He's up against an Iranian negotiator, the foreign minister, Araghchi, who was the number two negotiator in the previous -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And Witkoff has no previous experience negotiating nuclear deals or anything other than real estate deals?

DAVID SANGER: None.

And the guy he's negotiating against, Foreign Minister Araghchi, knows every single inch of the Iranian program, from the getting of the fuel, to the enrichment, all the way through.

So, President Trump wants a like really short deal, not the 150 pages of the Obama era one.

I think the Iranians see that as an opportunity to have vague wording about what they can do.

And the Iranians say, look, they're a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

That means they have the right to enrich.

The question is, can Witkoff talk them out of enriching.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Nancy, go into this a little bit more deeply, because I'm very interested in the role Israel plays here in this drama.

Obviously, Iran has argued and fights against Israel, doesn't believe Israel should exist.

The Israelis have been extremely worried about Iranian nuclear potential for 20, 25 years.

The current prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has signaled to us in manifold ways that he trusts Trump to deal with Iran more than he ever trusted Obama or Biden, but here we are, when he seems to be looking for a deal, as Susan suggests, at all costs.

So, where does this leave Netanyahu and his relationship with Donald Trump right now?

NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, the truth is it changed in some ways quite dramatically this week in that we really saw more public tension and an expression of frustration after the United States reached a deal with the Houthis that essentially said, you can continue attacking Israeli ships, and then we started to see strikes by the Houthis into Israel.

And remember that the Houthis are backed by Iran.

NANCY YOUSSEF: And so I think we saw a major shift where that sort of promise that the U.S. and Israel be lock step with -- if there was a threat from Iran seemed to be framed.

To me, what's interesting is what happens if Israel decides, as Trump has said, that you have to deal with your threats as you see them, they strike at Iran and need U.S. support?

Will the U.S. come through?

The indications we got from the White House today was that they wouldn't, but that would be a major break -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: When you say the indications, go into that a little more deeply.

NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, we heard a lot of tension between the two.

The president essentially said, we are here to strike deals for the United States.

We're not here to strike deals for Israel.

And so when they struck the Houthis deal, he said very frankly that this was a deal for U.S. interests and that Israel had to look out for its own defense.

But what does that look like?

Because if Israel goes and does that and then needs U.S. help, is it clear that the United States will -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Or if it goes and doesn't need U.S. help, but has nevertheless ignited a conflict -- DAVID SANGER: It's almost impossible to imagine that though, Jeff, because the Israeli capabilities are somewhat limited here.

And the question is, do they want to strike at the Israeli -- at the Iranian facilities but not really destroy them, because it really takes U.S. weapons to be able to get into the deepest of -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: 2,000 pound bombs, the deep -- DAVID SANGER: Right, to get to the fordo site, which is built inside a mountain.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

DAVID SANGER: And so there are very few scenarios in which there's an Israel-Iran conflict where the United States doesn't get sucked in.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Go ahead -- No.

Let me -- I'll come back.

But, Asma, as someone who's reporting in the White House every week, are you at all surprised that Donald Trump would kind of tell the Israelis, well, look I made a deal with the Houthis, they're going to stop attacking American ships and your problem is your problem?

ASMA KHALID: I mean, I was -- yes.

I will say I was surprised given the sense that, broadly speaking, I think that there was an expectation that he was going to be, and he presented himself throughout the campaign as being, I think, a strong supporter.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Much stronger than Joe Biden in his argument.

ASMA KHALID: Exactly, right?

And, look, I don't think this is just -- not just the Houthis statement this week.

I think it's notable that the president's traveling next week to the Middle East.

He's not visiting Israel.

He's visiting three Gulf countries.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

ASMA KHALID: Part of this is also, I think, the fact that, you know, the war in Gaza rages on, he doesn't really want to be committed to that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And there are more hotel building opportunities in the Gulf, sorry, I will say it, but that's the reality of this trip.

ASMA KHALID: But, yes, no, I think I'm surprised in that regard.

On the other side, I will say, though, I mean, Trump has often presented, and we can talk about this as -- you know, we'll probably talk a bit about like India, Pakistan.

I mean, broadly, this administration's view is sort of like we don't want to be engaged in other wars, we want to step out of it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Susan, I want to talk a bit about India and Pakistan.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Not that Asma is directing, but she is.

I mean, it's very important, but I think you had one quick point to make on that.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, just -- I think that people didn't understand that Donald Trump had a much more charged relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu than his campaign season rhetoric would have it, and actually never got over his fury with Netanyahu for calling up Joe Biden and congratulating him for the 2020 election.

NANCY YOUSSEF: That came up during the TIME Magazine interview.

SUSAN GLASSER: Yes, exactly.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Which was, in ordinary politics, a very normal thing to do, you congratulate whoever wins the election.

But for whatever reason, Trump was offended by that?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, it's Donald Trump's litmus test.

SUSAN GLASSER: It's all personal for him.

SUSAN GLASSER: And, again, it's not about policy.

But I do think that not visiting Israel this week is very notable because Steve Witkoff was also in charge of negotiating a ceasefire that was going to be a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

That has failed.

The administration doesn't want to call attention to the fact that Witkoff has failed to produce a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

He has failed to produce a meaningful ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

And now Trump has given him this other assignment with Iran.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He's a busy guy.

Okay.

So, in the next five minutes, we have to talk about Pakistan, India, Canada, and Denmark.

So, I will try to keep my question short, but I do want you to listen to J.D.

Vance talking about the India-Pakistan conflict.

I mean, obviously, it seems to me that it's America's business when two nuclear-armed powers seem to be escalating a war, but J.D.

Vance has a more nuanced view.

Let's listen.

J.D.

VANCE, U.S. Vice President: What we can do is try to encourage these folks to deescalate a little bit, but we're not going to get involved in the middle of war.

That's fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America's ability to control it.

You know, America can't tell the Indians to lay down their arms.

We can't tell the Pakistanis to lay down their arms.

And so we're going to continue to pursue this thing through diplomatic channels.

Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war, or God forbid, a nuclear conflict.

But, sure, we're worried about these things.

ASMA KHALID: That sounded like hopes and prayers, right?

We're offering our hopes and prayers that this will not escalate.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, what it sounded like to me is -- stay on this -- is a little bit like we're no longer the superpower that dispatches the secretary of state to go stop people from fighting.

ASMA KHALID: I mean, I would assume -- I shouldn't say, I would assume.

Look, I don't think that it benefits, I would say, certainly Pakistan or neither India really to escalate in this situation.

And if they could find a way to deescalate an off-ramp, it would be open to it.

No one, no country, certainly not the United States, is publicly offering that leadership for an off-ramp.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: David is this war America's business?

DAVID SANGER: You know, anytime that two countries that combined have probably 400 more or more nuclear weapons come together, it can become your business really quickly.

And that's the problem here.

And, you know, back in 2001, when there was another one of these really bad conflicts, Colin Powell went over to Delhi and to Islamabad.

And I remember him saying to me one time after he was done with this, it had been his plan to make sure there was a senior American in one capital or the other so that these countries would not head into the worst of this.

DAVID SANGER: And, you know, what have we seen now just in the past few hours, attacks directly around Islamabad on some of their military sites (ph).

NANCY YOUSSEF: That's a great point.

But they were also -- in the first Trump administration, when there were tensions in 2019, Mike Pompeo, writes about this in his book about the U.S. intervention, that this was the U.S. -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Former secretary of state.

NANCY YOUSSEF: Excuse me, yes.

NANCY YOUSSEF: And, by the way, Rubio has been in touch with the parties all week.

So, it's not like they weren't involved.

And so this idea, this has been the role that the U.S. has played as a broker, and to say right now at the height of tensions, we're stepping back, there is no one else to fill that void that the U.S. has, as you know, since 2001 and certainly before that filled, this is not the time to sort of change the fundamentals of how we approach these conflicts.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Susan, I want to play something that President Trump said about two of our allies, Canada and Denmark, and then I want you to comment on it and then tie it up into a very neat package.

KRISTEN WELKER: I asked you if you would rule out military force to take Greenland, and you said, no, you don't rule out anything.

Would you rule out military force to take Canada?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think we're not going to ever get to that point.

It could happen -- something could happen with Greenland.

I'll be honest, we need that for national and international security.

KRISTEN WELKER: But you are not ruling out military force to take Greenland?

DONALD TRUMP: I don't rule it out.

I don't say I'm going to do it, but I don't rule out anything.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Susan, we have a lot of problems and challenges in the world.

Denmark, which owns Greenland, is a NATO ally.

Why is the president of the United States threatening a NATO ally with military action when there's so much else to do.

SUSAN GLASSER: Jeff, you know, I don't think we need to get inside Donald Trump's brain or pretend that we understand him to look and see.

This is the through line of Donald Trump from the minute he stepped on the public stage is attacks often inexplicable on America's allies and praise often inexplicable for America's adversaries.

And that is the one consistency that we've seen from Donald Trump, a man who can change his mind three times in one day on what our actual goal is in Iran nuclear negotiations.

But right now, the fact remains that Donald Trump, a little bit more than 100 days into office, is threatening Denmark and praising Iran, okay?

So, we are in a kind of an Alice in Wonderland situation.

And that I think is the longer term damage to the United States.

You asked it to put it together.

What I would say, and I've been thinking this week about the passing of someone we all know, Joe Nye, great professor from Harvard, came up with the concept of soft power, America soft power in the world.

Donald Trump is trading that away because leadership was our power in the world.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That was a pretty good answer.

Thank you, Susan.

We're going to have to leave it there for now.

We'll be talking about these things obviously in the weeks to come.

But I want to thank our guests for joining me.

I want to thank you at home for watching us.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goodnight from Washington.

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