{"podcast":{"title":"The Ezra Klein Show","slug":"the-ezra-klein-show-1371595","podcast_index_feed_id":1371595,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/82FI35Px","website_url":"https://www.nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/47913775-afcf-4643-935f-31f1dcc86cfb/6a0e5e15-04a3-47c8-9c50-2f2fe8e84437/3000x3000/teks-album-20art-3000px.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"New York Times Opinion","episode_count":512,"summary":"Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike? Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-19T18:20:25.714319+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show-1371595"},"episode":{"title":"What Trump Didn’t Know About Iran","slug":"what-trump-didn-t-know-about-iran","published_at":"2026-03-14T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show-1371595/what-trump-didn-t-know-about-iran","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show-1371595","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ali-vaez.html","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pfx.vpixl.com/6qj4J/pscrb.fm/rss/p/nyt.simplecastaudio.com/3026b665-46df-4d18-98e9-d1ce16bbb1df/episodes/2f50cd01-001f-469d-8ee0-acb47e259567/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=3026b665-46df-4d18-98e9-d1ce16bbb1df&awEpisodeId=2f50cd01-001f-469d-8ee0-acb47e259567&feed=82FI35Px","summary":"The Trump administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to this war. And the United States, Iran and Israel were brought to the brink of war in the first place because of a whole series of misjudgments and miscalculations going back decades. Ali Vaez is the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal, and is in fact himself a nuclear scientist. He’s also an author of “How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare.” In this conversation, Vaez explains how over 47 years the United States, Israel and Iran came to one another as threats, and why so many efforts to thaw relations failed. It’s the briefing on Iran that Trump should have received before he decided to go to war. Mentioned: How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Book Recommendations: Persians by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy P. Mottahedeh Tomorrow Is Yesterday by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and…","meta_description":"The Trump administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to this war. And the United States, Iran and Israel were brought to the brink of war in the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5471,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-ezra-klein-show-1371595/episodes/what-trump-didn-t-know-about-iran/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show-1371595/what-trump-didn-t-know-about-iran.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}