June 22, 2025 • 12 mins
The United States conducted airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, marking a dramatic escalation of the US’s involvement in Israel’s deepening war with Tehran.
On today’s Big Take Podcast, Bloomberg national security and intelligence reporter Natalia Drozdiak and Israel Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner join host Sarah Holder to talk through what led to President Trump’s decision to strike, how the surprise attack happened and what comes next.
Read more: A Weakened Iran Can Still Inflict Pain on the US — and the World
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. A short time ago,
the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the
three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
On Saturday night, the United States conducted airstrikes on three
of Iran's nuclear sites. It was a dramatic escalation of
the US's involvement in Israel's deepening war with Tehran.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Our objective was the destruction of irans nuclear enrichment capacity
and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the
world's number one state sponsor of terror.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
President Trump addressed the nation at ten pm Eastern and
called the attacks on Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities quote
a spectacular military.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Success rand The bully of the Middle East must now
make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be
far greater and a lot easier.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath said in a press conference
from the Pentagon that an initial battleground assessment suggested that
the strikes had quote the desired effect.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, but it's worth noting
the operation did not target Iranian troops of the Iranian people.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Within hours of the attack, Israel's prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
put out a recorded statement praising the US strikes. Iran's
foreign minister said the country would use all options to
defend itself. Bloomberg's US National security and intelligence reporter Natalia
Drosdiak says that Trump's monumental decision happened slowly and then
(01:45):
suddenly all at once.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
He had publicly said that he would give himself two
weeks to decide, and over the weekend we started seeing
some signs that maybe something was up sooner than that,
and it appears that he decided pretty much minutes before
the bomber plant's actually deployed to Iran. So this was
(02:12):
a relatively last minute decision, even if it was something
that he'd been considering for the last few days.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And now it's raised questions that could take much longer
to resolve.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So the fear was that getting involved here, even if
it was a limited surgical strike, that could escalate and
spiral out of control in such a way that would
just drag the US back into another longer fight.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show What Comes After the
US strikes on Iran? Natalia drosdiac covered is national security
(03:01):
and intelligence for Bloomberg and has been following the US's
weekend strike on Iran.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So this whole operation took about thirty seven hours. They
dubbed it Midnight Hammer. It resulted in strikes on Iran's
nuclear sites in fordeaux Is, Fahan, and Natan's. In the end,
they ended up using about one hundred and twenty five planes.
They even launched Tomahawk missiles from submarines, you know, some
hundred miles away, if not more, And they ended up
(03:30):
using about fourteen of those bunker buster bombs, which are
called massive ordnance penetrator bombs. So by the end of it,
because there were no US service members who.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Were lost or harmed.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
And Iran also didn't end up firing at any US assets,
the administration deemed it a big success.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well, the move was surprising for a president who campaigned
on America First, who promised to end the US's involvement
in forever Wars. How much of a reversal is this
from Trump?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
So, I mean, on one hand, he has been saying
repeatedly for years now that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon,
But on the other hand as you say he's been.
He had campaigned on becoming, you know, the peace president
and getting America out of wars that were in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the world. There's also a
strong faction inside his party that tend to be more restrainers,
(04:26):
that don't want to get engaged in these forever wars.
But the question is whether they'll ultimately rally around him,
and you know, they might be able to come around
to that narrative, especially if these strikes stay limited and
don't escalate in a major way.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The US strikes came nine days after Israel bombed Iran
on June thirteenth, setting off a series of attacks between
the two countries. Ethan Bronner is Bloomberg's Israel bureau chief,
and he's been covering the fallout. I asked him what
we know so far about the love of coordination between
Israel and the US and a lead up to the
US as strikes.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
It was exceptionally tight coordination.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Trump got a call from Natanya who said we are
going to move and he didn't stop them.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
He didn't say don't do it, but he said you're
on your own. But then what.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Happened is the Israelis, after many years and months of planning,
actually carried out a rather brilliant set of tactical moves
in terms of killing a number of top people, in
terms of damaging Natons and other uranium and Richmond site,
and in terms of taking out a whole bunch of
launchers and long range ballistic missiles. So when that happened,
(05:43):
I think that the Americans looked on and said, well,
this could be something we could join easily, and the
Israeli said it to them. They said, hey, we've set
the table, no boots.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
On the ground.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
All you have to do is bring your amazing hardware,
your B two's and your bunker busters, draw a few
bombs and get out.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
That's all we're asking of you. And in essence, that's
what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So, I mean, what does the US's entrance into this world,
the response to that call and that ask say about
Nyaho's relationship with Trump and his influence over the president.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So we do know that he has been very influential
over the years, and in fact, Nichan Yaou did tell
the Nation Israel a week ago that he ordered the
beginning the preparation for this attack on Iran in November.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
So it's clear that the election of Trump was one
of the motives for him to do so.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
President Biden was against this kind of military activity, so
was President Obama, and so in previous efforts to maybe
bomb Iran, the Americans pushed back and did not allow
Israel to do so this time. Interestingly, in the spring,
it looked like President Trump did say to them hold
(06:58):
off when they wanted to move forward.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
He wanted to give diplomacy a chance.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
But he also says that diplomacy didn't work, and therefore
he decided to move in this direction.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Beyond destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities, Israel has also called for
regime change in Iran. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Hegsuth said
that wasn't part of the US's goals, but later, in
a post on True Social Trump implied that he did
favor regime change too. As he put it, make Iran
great again. What do we know about the differences in
(07:32):
what the US and Israel hope to accomplish here?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So officially, Israel has not named regime change as one
of its war aims.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It has frequently said, we'd be delighted. We think it's
a great thing.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Ultimately, that's what has to happen, but that they have
not called for that. They have set out three war
aims to destroy Around's nuclear capacity, two to destroy its
ballistic missile capacity, and three to destroy its ability to
sponsor militias around Israel that seek its destruction. There has
(08:07):
been a kind of emission creep in Israel about this,
and one of the reasons, of course, is that over
the last nine days since Israel launched its attack on Iran,
the ballistic missiles that have flown into this country have
been extremely destructive and very frightening. They have left people homeless,
they have destroyed whole city blocks, and they have made
(08:32):
the Israelis feel that simply ending the nuclear program may not.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
End the threat that Iran poses to this country.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So what do we know about the actual extent of
the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities and its capabilities.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So far, we don't know much, Sarah. We are waiting,
and the even the.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Israeli officials that I've spoken to, so they're waiting for
deeper data and knowledge and information of what happened.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
The goal of the US operation.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Was to drop such heavy, heavy bombs on fourdoh that
it would not be able to be reconstituted.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
We don't know if that happened.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
We do know that if fourteen thirty thousand pound bombs
were dropped.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
As apparently as the case on.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A spot, even if it's eighty meters or one hundred
meters underground, it feels like a reasonable assumption that bad
things would happen to that place.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
As of Sunday evening, the extent of the damage to
Iran's nuclear facilities was still being assessed. So I asked
Bloomberg's Natalia Drosiak what the Trump administration was preparing for next.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
So at this point, it's pretty clear that Iran is
going to have to retaliate against the US. You know,
this has been the Supreme Leader's main project for decades,
this nuclear project. So the strikes that we've seen over
the last few days are not going to go over lately.
And there's a variety of ways that they may choose
(10:01):
to retaliate. It could be attacking US forces in the
Middle East or American citizens. It could involve getting proxy
groups involved launching terror attacks around the world. There's any
number of ways that they may choose to retaliate, and
in terms of how the US will respond, they've made
clear that if Iran responds or retaliates in any way,
(10:25):
the US will hit back even harder. And in the meantime,
the White House is also, you know, continuing to push
for diplomacy. They're hoping that, you know, with Iran's program
now so decimated, as they say, as they claim anyway,
they're hoping that they'll feel compelled to finally come to
(10:46):
the table in a serious way and reach a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, the US and Iran, we're engaging in negotiations and
talks before this attack. What could diplomacy look like moving forward?
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It's really difficult to say, because I think at this
stage there's probably a lot of trust that's been broken.
So will the Iranians believe the Americans? I think that's
one of the key questions. Another one is how do
you actually monitor the Iranian nuclear program if they're allowed
to have any any sort of enrichment, even if it's
(11:21):
just for civilian purposes. You know, that was one of
the benefits, let's say, or what proponents were advocating for
as part of the past nuclear program, and now with
these sites destroyed, that monitoring is going to be very difficult.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Is there a scenario where this weekend's attacks are the
end of US involvement in this conflict? Like, could this
go back to being Israel's war tomorrow next week?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
I think this is the key question. I think what
we'll decide that is how Iran retaliates. If they retaliate
in a way that's unsuccessful in terms of targeting American
forces or American citizens, then there might be a way
to keep this from spiraling.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
For more reporting on the Israel Iran war from on
the ground in the Middle East and from the White House,
go to Bloomberg dot Com and tomorrow on the Big Take,
we'll bring you an episode diving into what this latest
escalation could mean for oil markets and access to Iron
Strait of Hormuz. To get more from The Big Take
(12:31):
and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe
today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back tomorrow.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. A short time ago,
the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the
three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
On Saturday night, the United States conducted airstrikes on three
of Iran's nuclear sites. It was a dramatic escalation of
the US's involvement in Israel's deepening war with Tehran.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Our objective was the destruction of irans nuclear enrichment capacity
and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the
world's number one state sponsor of terror.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
President Trump addressed the nation at ten pm Eastern and
called the attacks on Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities quote
a spectacular military.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Success rand The bully of the Middle East must now
make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be
far greater and a lot easier.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath said in a press conference
from the Pentagon that an initial battleground assessment suggested that
the strikes had quote the desired effect.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, but it's worth noting
the operation did not target Iranian troops of the Iranian people.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Within hours of the attack, Israel's prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
put out a recorded statement praising the US strikes. Iran's
foreign minister said the country would use all options to
defend itself. Bloomberg's US National security and intelligence reporter Natalia
Drosdiak says that Trump's monumental decision happened slowly and then
(01:45):
suddenly all at once.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
He had publicly said that he would give himself two
weeks to decide, and over the weekend we started seeing
some signs that maybe something was up sooner than that,
and it appears that he decided pretty much minutes before
the bomber plant's actually deployed to Iran. So this was
(02:12):
a relatively last minute decision, even if it was something
that he'd been considering for the last few days.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And now it's raised questions that could take much longer
to resolve.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
So the fear was that getting involved here, even if
it was a limited surgical strike, that could escalate and
spiral out of control in such a way that would
just drag the US back into another longer fight.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show What Comes After the
US strikes on Iran? Natalia drosdiac covered is national security
(03:01):
and intelligence for Bloomberg and has been following the US's
weekend strike on Iran.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So this whole operation took about thirty seven hours. They
dubbed it Midnight Hammer. It resulted in strikes on Iran's
nuclear sites in fordeaux Is, Fahan, and Natan's. In the end,
they ended up using about one hundred and twenty five planes.
They even launched Tomahawk missiles from submarines, you know, some
hundred miles away, if not more, And they ended up
(03:30):
using about fourteen of those bunker buster bombs, which are
called massive ordnance penetrator bombs. So by the end of it,
because there were no US service members who.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Were lost or harmed.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
And Iran also didn't end up firing at any US assets,
the administration deemed it a big success.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well, the move was surprising for a president who campaigned
on America First, who promised to end the US's involvement
in forever Wars. How much of a reversal is this
from Trump?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
So, I mean, on one hand, he has been saying
repeatedly for years now that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon,
But on the other hand as you say he's been.
He had campaigned on becoming, you know, the peace president
and getting America out of wars that were in the
Middle East and elsewhere in the world. There's also a
strong faction inside his party that tend to be more restrainers,
(04:26):
that don't want to get engaged in these forever wars.
But the question is whether they'll ultimately rally around him,
and you know, they might be able to come around
to that narrative, especially if these strikes stay limited and
don't escalate in a major way.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The US strikes came nine days after Israel bombed Iran
on June thirteenth, setting off a series of attacks between
the two countries. Ethan Bronner is Bloomberg's Israel bureau chief,
and he's been covering the fallout. I asked him what
we know so far about the love of coordination between
Israel and the US and a lead up to the
US as strikes.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
It was exceptionally tight coordination.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Trump got a call from Natanya who said we are
going to move and he didn't stop them.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
He didn't say don't do it, but he said you're
on your own. But then what.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Happened is the Israelis, after many years and months of planning,
actually carried out a rather brilliant set of tactical moves
in terms of killing a number of top people, in
terms of damaging Natons and other uranium and Richmond site,
and in terms of taking out a whole bunch of
launchers and long range ballistic missiles. So when that happened,
(05:43):
I think that the Americans looked on and said, well,
this could be something we could join easily, and the
Israeli said it to them. They said, hey, we've set
the table, no boots.
Speaker 5 (05:54):
On the ground.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
All you have to do is bring your amazing hardware,
your B two's and your bunker busters, draw a few
bombs and get out.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
That's all we're asking of you. And in essence, that's
what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So, I mean, what does the US's entrance into this world,
the response to that call and that ask say about
Nyaho's relationship with Trump and his influence over the president.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So we do know that he has been very influential
over the years, and in fact, Nichan Yaou did tell
the Nation Israel a week ago that he ordered the
beginning the preparation for this attack on Iran in November.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
So it's clear that the election of Trump was one
of the motives for him to do so.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
President Biden was against this kind of military activity, so
was President Obama, and so in previous efforts to maybe
bomb Iran, the Americans pushed back and did not allow
Israel to do so this time. Interestingly, in the spring,
it looked like President Trump did say to them hold
(06:58):
off when they wanted to move forward.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
He wanted to give diplomacy a chance.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
But he also says that diplomacy didn't work, and therefore
he decided to move in this direction.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Beyond destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities, Israel has also called for
regime change in Iran. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Hegsuth said
that wasn't part of the US's goals, but later, in
a post on True Social Trump implied that he did
favor regime change too. As he put it, make Iran
great again. What do we know about the differences in
(07:32):
what the US and Israel hope to accomplish here?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
So officially, Israel has not named regime change as one
of its war aims.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
It has frequently said, we'd be delighted. We think it's
a great thing.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Ultimately, that's what has to happen, but that they have
not called for that. They have set out three war
aims to destroy Around's nuclear capacity, two to destroy its
ballistic missile capacity, and three to destroy its ability to
sponsor militias around Israel that seek its destruction. There has
(08:07):
been a kind of emission creep in Israel about this,
and one of the reasons, of course, is that over
the last nine days since Israel launched its attack on Iran,
the ballistic missiles that have flown into this country have
been extremely destructive and very frightening. They have left people homeless,
they have destroyed whole city blocks, and they have made
(08:32):
the Israelis feel that simply ending the nuclear program may not.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
End the threat that Iran poses to this country.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So what do we know about the actual extent of
the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities and its capabilities.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So far, we don't know much, Sarah. We are waiting,
and the even the.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Israeli officials that I've spoken to, so they're waiting for
deeper data and knowledge and information of what happened.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
The goal of the US operation.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Was to drop such heavy, heavy bombs on fourdoh that
it would not be able to be reconstituted.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
We don't know if that happened.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
We do know that if fourteen thirty thousand pound bombs
were dropped.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
As apparently as the case on.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
A spot, even if it's eighty meters or one hundred
meters underground, it feels like a reasonable assumption that bad
things would happen to that place.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
As of Sunday evening, the extent of the damage to
Iran's nuclear facilities was still being assessed. So I asked
Bloomberg's Natalia Drosiak what the Trump administration was preparing for next.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
So at this point, it's pretty clear that Iran is
going to have to retaliate against the US. You know,
this has been the Supreme Leader's main project for decades,
this nuclear project. So the strikes that we've seen over
the last few days are not going to go over lately.
And there's a variety of ways that they may choose
(10:01):
to retaliate. It could be attacking US forces in the
Middle East or American citizens. It could involve getting proxy
groups involved launching terror attacks around the world. There's any
number of ways that they may choose to retaliate, and
in terms of how the US will respond, they've made
clear that if Iran responds or retaliates in any way,
(10:25):
the US will hit back even harder. And in the meantime,
the White House is also, you know, continuing to push
for diplomacy. They're hoping that, you know, with Iran's program
now so decimated, as they say, as they claim anyway,
they're hoping that they'll feel compelled to finally come to
(10:46):
the table in a serious way and reach a deal.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, the US and Iran, we're engaging in negotiations and
talks before this attack. What could diplomacy look like moving forward?
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It's really difficult to say, because I think at this
stage there's probably a lot of trust that's been broken.
So will the Iranians believe the Americans? I think that's
one of the key questions. Another one is how do
you actually monitor the Iranian nuclear program if they're allowed
to have any any sort of enrichment, even if it's
(11:21):
just for civilian purposes. You know, that was one of
the benefits, let's say, or what proponents were advocating for
as part of the past nuclear program, and now with
these sites destroyed, that monitoring is going to be very difficult.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Is there a scenario where this weekend's attacks are the
end of US involvement in this conflict? Like, could this
go back to being Israel's war tomorrow next week?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
I think this is the key question. I think what
we'll decide that is how Iran retaliates. If they retaliate
in a way that's unsuccessful in terms of targeting American
forces or American citizens, then there might be a way
to keep this from spiraling.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
For more reporting on the Israel Iran war from on
the ground in the Middle East and from the White House,
go to Bloomberg dot Com and tomorrow on the Big Take,
we'll bring you an episode diving into what this latest
escalation could mean for oil markets and access to Iron
Strait of Hormuz. To get more from The Big Take
(12:31):
and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe
today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back tomorrow.
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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