Six Months of War, and Trump’s Push for ‘Lake America’

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Jane Bradley** (0:00)
It's Haley Bailey.

**Yeganeh Torbati** (0:02)
Okay, I need to tell you about something.

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**SPEAKER_1** (0:21)
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**Jane Bradley** (0:25)
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**Tracy Mumford** (0:32)
From the New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Friday, August 28th. Here's what we're covering.
Six months ago today.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:46)
The United States and its partners have launched Operation Epic Fury, one of the largest, most complex, most overwhelming military offensives the world has ever seen.

**Tracy Mumford** (0:59)
The US and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, with President Trump vowing there would be a quick, decisive victory over the country's hard-line regime.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:08)
I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise.

**Tracy Mumford** (1:25)
Now, half a year in, the war has failed to achieve the goals Trump first laid out of sparking an uprising to overthrow Iran's government and crushing the country's nuclear program.
Instead, the conflict is dragging on, with analysts saying there's no end in sight.
And in Iran, my colleagues say there's a growing sense of hopelessness.

**Yeganeh Torbati** (1:48)
For a lot of Iranians, when the war started, although they were very worried about what might happen, a lot of them had some kind of hope for what the war might bring in terms of unseating the regime. That, of course, has not come to pass. And so, instead, they're sort of increasingly convinced that, OK, the Islamic Republic is here to stay.
And then also, they're just facing a lot of economic pressures.

**Tracy Mumford** (2:11)
Yeganeh Torbati covers Iran for The Times. She says, Iranians are facing high rates of unemployment and skyrocketing food prices that have put even basic staples out of reach for many people.
At the same time, beyond the economic squeeze, they're also feeling the pressure of a regime that's gotten more and more repressive, tightening control over the country.

**Yeganeh Torbati** (2:33)
There's been increased executions this year, especially of political prisoners. The government has been going after dissidents or even people who just speak out against it online. And so people feel quite scared and anxious about that. And then even small things. So recently, Tehran and other major cities have seen this kind of burgeoning cafe culture.
And this has sort of come about because, as Iranians are pressured economically, they can't maybe even go out to dinner. But they can still at least afford a cup of coffee with their friends once a week or so and kind of go out for a few hours and feel normal. And these have been places where young people had been gathering, women were often unveiled. And then that had become kind of this very conspicuous counterculture. That has now become a target for the state. And so recently, dozens of these cafes have been shut down.
It's really just the latest instance of the state making very clear that it wants to be in control of society and is not allowing even these little pockets of sort of ordinary life or anything that they see as not fully in line with state ideology.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:48)
Now two quick updates on the Trump Administration.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:51)
First, we're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America.

**Tracy Mumford** (3:59)
President Trump signed an executive order yesterday directing his administration to rename Lake Ontario as he continues to take aim at Canada amid an escalating trade war. Trump has issued a declaration like this before, ordering the Gulf of Mexico to be officially renamed the Gulf of America.
In response to the move, this week, the head of one Canadian province dismissed it as more of the same, saying, quote, he's trying to play the hits for his base, but I think everybody here thinks it's a little sad. When it comes to name changes, Trump's order only affects federal agencies and documents, and the governor of New York, the state that borders the Great Lake, said it will continue to call it Lake Ontario.