Sources & Methods

President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping backed off their trade war - but now nuclear tensions are front and center.

Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with White House Correspondent Deepa Shivaram about what Trump has and hasn't achieved on his trip through Asia. And Pentagon Correspondent Tom Bowman talks about the impending deadline on the U.S. maritime campaign against alleged drug smugglers and what the shutdown means for service members.

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Our reporter visited boat docks in Trinidad to find out.

The Trump administration announced two more strikes on what it says were drug boats in the Pacific. That follows seven strikes in the Caribbean. NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer talks with international correspondent Eyder Peralta about how countries in the region are reacting. And national security correspondent Greg Myre joins from Tel Aviv, where a carousel of U.S. officials has kept pressure on Israel to adhere to the president's peace plan.

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The President said U.S. military strikes have “almost totally stopped” drug trafficking from Venezuela by sea. “Now we’ll stop it by land,” he said.

Justice correspondent Ryan Lucas and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman talk through the disputed legal rationale for the strikes and what we know about President Trump’s goals in Venezuela. And Tom joined virtually the entire Pentagon press corps in handing in his badge on Wednesday. He explains how he’ll cover the decisions made in that building from the outside.Email the show at [email protected]

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And an increasingly isolated Israel launches a new ground offensive on Gaza City.

In this episode, political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben and diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen talk about the foreign policy issues that loomed large as President Trump visited U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer: the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. NPR international correspondent Daniel Estrin joins from Tel Aviv to talk about how Israelis are reacting to their increasing isolation amid international pressure on Israel to stop its offensive.

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This episode, national security correspondent Greg Myre and domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef join Mary Louise Kelly discuss how U.S. national security changed after the September 11th attacks. Will the structures put in place to prevent another attack survive the Trump administration’s cuts to intelligence agencies? And did a focus on militant Islamism mean turning away from threats posed by white supremacist groups?

And Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, argues that America’s political division is its greatest national security threat -- and the best defense is rebuilding the middle class.

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