The Department of Defense tracks how much US wars cost, but last week President Biden cited instead accounting from the Costs of War Project at Brown University. Its co-director, Stephanie Savell, explains why.

Today’s show was produced by Victoria Chamberlin with help from Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained.

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