Clip: The mounting cost of the Iran war

VIVIAN SALAMA: Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. I'm Vivian Salama, in tonight for Jeffrey Goldberg.

The Iran war is escalating. The U.S. ramped up strikes again this week, including on civilian targets. The military is reportedly moving assets to the region. The Iran-backed Houthis are now striking oil tankers, and President Trump says he's close to making a decision about a massive attack.

And now we're learning more about how this administration makes wartime decisions, how Congress responds or doesn't, and about the economic, political, and human cost of war.

Joining me to break it all down, Leigh Ann Caldwell is chief Washington correspondent at Puck, Adam Harris is a host of Radio Atlantic, Jonathan Karl is chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, and David Sanger is a White House and national security correspondent at The New York Times. Thank you all so much for joining me.

David, I want to start with you. We had a memorandum of understanding here that was aimed to put us on a path toward peace. That appears to be on the brink of collapse. Exactly what is the strategy here going forward? What is the White House trying to achieve?

DAVID SANGER, White House Correspondent, The New York Times: It's really hard to say at this point, Vivian, because if you don't have much of a strategy going in, it's hard to develop one in the middle of a war.

The president started this with 38 days of bombing. It started at the end of February. And that clearly did not achieve his political goals, which just to remind everybody from the night that the war started, were end the nuclear program, end the missile program, weaken the government so much that the people of Iran could rise up and overthrow it. In fact, he asked them to stay in their homes, wait for the bombing to be over and all that.

And the president now discovered that those 38 days did not crack the government. So, he declared a ceasefire. They then went to get to this memorandum of understanding that was so hastily put together that it left all kinds of vague issues. The Iranians immediately interpreted it as giving them sovereignty over the strait. And now the president is sort of back to where he was on February 28th, trying to make the argument that bombing them more, including hitting civilian targets, including some that people are concerned could be war crimes will somehow crack this regime. And we're not sure there's any evidence that the two are directly related.

VIVIAN SALAMA: All the while sending economic shockwaves around the world.

Jon, the president has made clear that he's been frustrated about the pace of this war especially. You speak to him often. What are his biggest grievances at this point?

JONATHAN KARL, Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News: Look he's gone back and forth in his rhetoric obviously between sounding like a permanent peace is at hand to sounding like he's going to annihilate all of Iranian civilization, as he has said. I think this moment right now, you heard what he said to Axios, promising this massive attack, saying a decision is coming soon, this does not sound the same. This does not sound like some of the bravado we saw in the past.

First of all, they've clearly been moving additional military assets into the region. They are clearly prepared for a major attack. And what I'm hearing from senior White House officials is, yes, take very seriously what he said to Axios. Take very seriously what he said. He is looking at possibly ordering a level of attack similar to what we saw at the very beginning of Operation Epic Fury, maybe even more so.

What I can't figure out at this point is what the objective is. Do they really think that additional attacks, massive new attacks, are going to change the Iranian negotiating position? Do they think it's going to permanently open up the Strait of Hormuz? What are they trying to achieve? I can't figure that out right now.

What they've achieved so far is effectively regime change in Iran, where you have a more hardened Iranian leadership with the IRGC, the military forces firmly in charge, and those political figures, the ones J.D. Vance and Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been negotiating with marginalized.

VIVIAN SALAMA: And what do you make of the fact that he has been so public sometimes about the targets that he's going to go after in this war?

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, you know, sometimes you think with Trump it is bluster. He's putting them out there a warning. But, again, the assets are in place. The preparations are in place for him to actually make the order to do some of what he has been talking about.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Right. And, obviously, the costs were on full display this week at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. On Wednesday, President Trump witnessed the return of the bodies of four service members killed in action, Lieutenant Tyler Feehan, Sergeant Angel Rampersad, Sergeant Michael Swinton, and Private Isabella Gonzales.

And so, Adam, there are also invisible costs to wars. What are some of the invisible costs in your estimate that a lot of viewers might not realize but could catch up with them later on?

ADAM HARRIS, Host, Radio Atlantic: Yes, right on top of the typical costs that we would associate with it, right, the deaths to troops, the deaths to civilians who are caught in the crossfire. You have this economic shock that Americans are starting to experience in a more granular way right now, right? Gas was over $100 -- or oil was over $100 a barrel very briefly this week. And we sort of depleted, right?

Early in this war the administration was able to move assets around, sort of dip into some of the strategic stockpiles that we've had for petroleum. But our strategic petroleum reserves are at the lowest that they've been since 1983 at this point, right? They have fewer levers to pull on in order to make sure that the costs don't get shifted over to consumers. And so the gas prices that we're seeing high right now are likely to continue on for a significant period.

And on top of that, it's not just the gas, right? It's the diesel, the things that you're using for trucks and things to move the products that will increase the expenses for daily household products, right? And that's something that, that Americans will start to see more frequently --

VIVIAN SALAMA: Over time.

ADAM HARRIS: -- in their daily purchases.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Right. And then, of course, there's also the literal cost of this war. The Pentagon this week said an estimated $37.5 billion so far has been spent on this war. And as those costs grow, frustration is growing, especially on The Hill.