The News Roundup For January 16, 2026

25:57All right, back to the news roundup. And Zoe Clark, like I said, I'm glad you're here from Michigan Public because the president was in Michigan this week where he spoke at the Detroit Economic Club defending his economic policies and touting new plans. In the coming weeks, I will be laying out even more plans to help bring back affordability. And again, remember, that's a fake word by Democrats. The president spent part of the speech on the economy. I mean, he also repeated lies about all three of the presidential elections he's competed in. He made false claims about inflation, about who pays tariffs, about immigration, and the Panama Canal for some reason.

26:40Zoe Clark, what did you hear in this speech? We heard the president at the same time addressing affordability, reminding people it's fake. But several initiatives from the president this week on the price of drugs, credit card debt we'll talk about. What did you hear? What was important? Yeah, I mean, I can't believe I'm actually going to say this, Todd, but he sounded Biden-esque. I mean, basically what he is doing is what Joe Biden was trying to do last year, which is basically, now two years ago, basically tell Americans to not believe their bank accounts and not believe their sort of lived experiences about the economy.

27:18As you noted, basically saying, you know, affordability is a hoax and again saying that tariffs are his favorite word. And, you know, what we know here in Michigan is the same day that the president was here speaking at that Detroit Economic Club forum, Detroit News polling came out from the Glenn Gariff group that shows a plurality of voters here in Michigan think the economy is weaker under this president. and that 44%, again, a plurality, gave him a D or F on the handling of the economy so far. Zoe, the president has gone populist on credit cards. He called for a 10 % cap on credit card interest rates for one year.

27:58Now, he can't do this alone. He needs Congress to do this. It appears from my read of Congress this week, Republicans not interested. Republicans not interested, and certainly the financial industry not interested either, came out very quickly as well. And also now, you know, talking about a health care plan. So, you know, there's these sort of priorities that the American people are talking about that is important to them. But really, you know, we've already spent nearly an hour talking about the priorities of Americans that I don't think, you know, top of mind are Venezuela and Greenland and horrific violence that we're seeing in Minnesota.

28:37Zoe, one last note about Trump's appearance there in Michigan, in Detroit, and that's his behavior. Yes. A heckler yelled at Trump about the Epstein files. Presidents get yelled at by hecklers all the time. Trump returned a middle finger and appeared to utter an obscenity. His behavior in public has gotten more attention lately, calling a reporter piggy, quiet piggy, dozing off on camera. What did that moment, the middle finger from the president on camera, say to you? Well, I think it was incredibly telling about his patience or his ability, as I was saying earlier in the hour, sort of, you know, this ability to handle the First Amendment and allowing folks to show how they're feeling right now.

29:21Or again, as we talked about earlier in the Reuters interview, saying, well, maybe we don't even need a midterm. I'm doing so well. You know, this inability to sort of hear any distaste or dislike of his administration. We should note that the factory worker. What has really been making headlines in Michigan here already is that because of figuring out who he is and his name, there was a GoFundMe account. More than$800 ,000 had already been added to his account, and that is because he was basically taken off the floor and there was some concern about the gentleman's work moving forward. So more than$800 ,000.

30:01Argue for some perverse incentives there. Seriously. Seriously. 800 grand. Suddenly giving folks some ideas, huh? Olivia, you've covered many presidents in person. George W. Bush, of course, President Barack Obama. You've seen many hecklers. You've been next to one or two in your time, including shoe throwers, famously. Yep. Did you ever see any other president approach a response like this one? Nothing in public. I don't think I've ever seen a president give a heckler the middle finger. Certainly other presidents have responded negatively to being heckled, but nothing quite like this. All right, let's get back on substance, although the president's behavior and his health are highly substantive right now in America.

30:47The economy and inflation numbers, 2025, the numbers are in. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of inflation remained steady in December, but consumer prices were 2.7 percent higher than a year earlier. Steve, that's opposite of the president's claims on inflation, especially in Detroit this week. But what was notable for you in the numbers? Well, what's really important in these numbers is that they don't immediately tell the picture that the kitchen table, family economics are more and more expensive and they're rising at about 3.1%. You had other things that brought that down, like the price of gas has gone down a little bit.

31:31But what people are feeling when they go to the market and they're buying staples for their family is that they're still having a hard time. And inflation continues to be this really, really important issue. Many, many working Americans who just say prices are continuing to rise. So President Trump is wrong. You know, he has not beaten inflation. And these numbers, while expected, you know, are very clearly trouble, you know, problem for the for the president as we kind of go into this election year. as families continue to struggle with high prices. Olivia, how do you see the interaction between Trump's confrontation with Jerome Powell and actual numbers on inflation that are coming out this week?

32:12So my take on price increases is shaped by one Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve board member who rose to sort of household name because of her clashes with Donald Trump. But I want to invoke a speech that she gave a couple of years ago at Duke University, I believe, in which she said, Americans don't want to see the speed of inflation decrease. They want actual prices to decrease. They don't want disinflation. They want deflation. And that speaks to the political problem here because prices don't typically go down. Gas prices do because they are pretty volatile. They may slow, but they're not going down usually.

32:48But well, first of all, it's not healthy. In an economy like the American economy that is driven by consumption, you don't want deflation because you don't want people to be, oh, well, I'm not going to buy that TV now because in two months, it might be less. That leads to an economic slowdown. So that's one of the biggest problems here. I will also say that there was a really helpful poll in the Biden era that was, when you talk about the economy, what are you talking about? And for the first time that I can remember, a poll asked that question, and the answer was the price of goods and services.

33:19So not the stock market, right? Not your retirement accounts, not unemployment, but the price of goods and services. And that speaks to sort of the centrality of the political problem here. One listener writes, all of this, meaning the president's behavior, his statements on the economy, the Panama Canal, Minneapolis, all of this is a distraction from the Epstein files. As that heckler at the factory said, where are the files? Now, I don't know that all this is being orchestrated, Zoe Clark, to distract from any files, but the question remains, files were coming out and now they're not, many listeners want to know where the Epstein files are.

33:58Right. And that's not going to go away, right? Like that is not going to go away. And what we should note is I'm not sure we said it, but it was pedophile protector is what the person was yelling at the president. You know, I think what I'm thinking a lot about this week in particular is what we've talked many times on the Friday News Roundup about is the Steve Bannon sort of flooding the zone, right? And that there was this sort of goal originally to flood the zone. It becomes too much to be able to discuss and really, in some respects, kind of comprehend for an average person just trying to go about their daily lives.

34:32But what you've seen this week is flooding the zone with things that are just not necessarily top of mind or interest or making lives better for Americans. And that's, again, what this, as I talked about earlier, Detroit News polling and And polling, I think, from across the country right now showing is that the priorities of Americans are not being met. And instead, what's flooding the zone are headlines that are negative and not helping this presidential administration. Zoe, it's a cogent point and an interesting data point for me there. Flooding the zone early in this second Trump administration had Trump at a very generous plus eight or plus nine in public approval.

35:16He is currently right around minus 15 with similar tactics. So I think that's some data backing up exactly what you're saying. I want to look at one very important development in our world of journalism and the First Amendment this week. On Wednesday, the FBI searched the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. They seized her phone as well as her work and personal computers, and this was all connected to an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. Olivier, how rare is this to see a reporter's home searched in this way?

35:56It's very rare, but we should note that the predicate was set in the early days of Trump 2.0 when his Justice Department or the Justice Department that he then now controls repealed a previous guidance under Merrick Garland, President Biden's attorney general, in which Garland had said that he would not, that he would not be subpoenaing journalists, not going after the press quite as much. They repealed that in the early days. That sort of set the tone and set in motion really the events that we just saw in the last couple of days. This is really quite rare. The Washington Post Newsroom's executive editor, Matt Murray, he said the DOJ search, quote, is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concerns around the constitutional protections for our work.

36:41Steve Clemens, does this have a direct impact on how reporters in Washington and outside of it are doing their jobs when covering this administration? Look, I think it's hugely chilling. I think, you know, the personal liability that reporters have and the risk that they are taking to kind of do their jobs, hold power accountable, This is very chilling. I disagree a little bit with my good friend Olivier because I think this has been a problem of many presidential administrations. I remember very well when New York Times correspondent Jim Risen was under the thumb of the Obama administration and Eric Holder, the threatened with imprisonment.

37:16So this is not – this is both Democratic and Republican administrations who continue to harass, detain, and even threaten imprisonment of journalists. And I think it not only damages and chills, you know, has a chilling effect on reporters here in this country. It also undermines the protections of many journalists reporting and trying to hold power accountable around the world. So it's very serious and it is not just a Trump administration. All right. I want to get a look into your reporters notebooks in just a minute. What stories you're looking at for the coming week that we need to be aware of.

37:53Before we do that, let's just take a moment to appreciate Nikki Glaser, comedian and MC who hosted the Golden Globes, I think for the second or third straight year in Los Angeles. First time ever, they gave out an award for best podcast at the Golden Globes that went to Good Hang with Amy Poehler. Runner up with Garland's 1A with Jen White. Runner up at the Golden Globes, of course. Here's Nikki Glaser. The Golden Globes, without a doubt, the most important thing that's happening in the world right now. So let's get down to business, shall we? We'll start the bidding for Warner Brothers at$5. Do I hear$5?

38:37Watch, if you didn't see it, watch her entire opening monologue. Nikki Glaser, she's in Ricky Gervais territory. She is so good. I'll just leave it at that. She's so good. Okay, reporter's notebook. Zoe, what do we need to be watching for next week? What's in your notebook? Well, I am watching, not quite next week, but coming up soon, the fight over which states are going to become the first in the 2028 Democratic primary battle. This is something that Michigan has been trying to be a part of for a long time. But, you know, as we well know, New Hampshire, Ohio tend to get the crown. So watching what it's going to look like, even though I know that it's so far off, 2028.

39:14We're sick humans that were already thinking about this. Blink and you'll miss it. It'll be here tomorrow. Steve Clemens? I'm just really focused still on Minnesota and on the roots of what we see going on, going back to looking at this was the home base of George Floyd and just watching. I mean, I don't think there's any bigger story than watching the deployment of force right now in very uncomfortable and disturbing ways in this part of the country. And we will be on that story next week here on 1A without a doubt. Olivier Knox. I am watching what is possibly the last truly bipartisan issue in American politics, which is curbing teens' access to social media.

39:52State after state have been acting to restrict not just cell phones in schools but access to these apps in general. We're all watching the experiment in Australia where they imposed fairly strict limits starting in December. It's very interesting to me to watch this happen on a state-by-state level as opposed to federal action. I want to thank Olivier Knox, Steve Clemens, and Zoe Clark of Michigan Public for joining us. We're going to take a quick pause and be back with the global edition of the News Roundup in just a moment. Stay with us.

40:25You know, we had some debate here at 1A about where to start with this week's news. Iran, where extreme tensions between Tehran and Washington are rising as protesters put more pressure on the regime. In Venezuela, where the new leader delivered a State of the Union address in Caracas while the opposition leader met President Trump in Washington and gave him her Nobel Peace Prize. Or Greenland, where U.S. moves to take over the island have put officials there in a full-blown diplomatic crisis. In all of these stories and in all of these places, one thing is clear. A tectonic shift in global power is underway.

41:04has what we've known about the world order since the end of World War II changed for good? Well, here to provide their analysis, a familiar voice for NPR listeners, Asma Khalid, who is now co-host of the BBC's daily podcast, The Global Story, focusing on the intersection of U.S. politics and world events. Asma, great to see you. Thank you for having me. Alex Ward is here, national security reporter covering the White House and State Department for The Wall Street Journal. Great to see you, Alex. Yeah, happy to be here. And Greg Kahlstrom is Middle East correspondent for The Economist. Hi, Greg.

41:37Always good to be with you. Well, we will go deep on Iran and Venezuela this hour, but we will start in Greenland. What once started as a diplomatic nuisance during President Trump's first term has devolved into a crisis. As I mentioned, European officials warning that NATO could now be at risk. Danish and Greenlandic leaders met with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. The mood from the Danes and the Greenlanders was grim. For us, ideas that would not respect territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark and the right of self-determination of the Greenlandic people are, of course, totally unacceptable.

42:22We therefore still have a fundamental disagreement. I don't want to say more than what we discussed in the closed meeting room, but I would like to have this, how do you say it in English, hope for more mutual understanding and trying to find the right balances. And after the meetings on Wednesday, President Trump drilled down again on his designs on Greenland and that anything except a takeover would be unacceptable. Greenland is very important for the national security, including of Denmark. And the problem is there's not a thing that Denmark can do about it if Russia or China wants to occupy Greenland.

43:05But there's everything we can do. Troops from several European countries, France, Germany, the U.K., Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, arrived in Greenland on Thursday to show support for Denmark. Talks between Copenhagen, Nook, and Washington are expected to continue at a high level over the coming weeks. European countries have been careful to call this a symbolic act, moving troops to Greenland. But it's still remarkable. Now, EU leaders have sought to acknowledge Trump's concerns about rising security threats in Greenland, Alex Ward. But what are the aims of Denmark and other countries that have sent troops?

43:41Is it defiance, deterrence? What are they trying to do here? Well, actually, I interviewed the Danish foreign minister yesterday, and he said it's none of the above. It's just a normal rotation, normal exercise. But it is – you can buy that or not buy that. It's not normal. It's not normal. None of this is normal. He says it's annual, but fair enough. I think what's fair to say is that Trump's desires to acquire Greenland have led Denmark and Europeans to show at least some movement towards defending the Arctic, which is something that is a fair thing and something that the US and European allies agreed to at NATO last year.

44:17Now, an important part of this is that they – when Rasmussen, the foreign minister, the Greenlandic foreign minister, met with J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, they came to some sort of agreement where there were red lines, right? The Danes said, you're not getting Greenland. The U.S. said, well, we want more Arctic security. And they thought – and now they're going to do high-level working groups. And they thought they left with a pretty good agreement. Then you had Caroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary on Thursday, say the president still wants to acquire Greenland.

44:46And so then you have Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister in the interview with me say, well, if that's still the stance, then this process might not work. So already some pretty negative signs about how this is all playing out. President Trump has disparaged efforts by Denmark to increase security in Greenland. He posted on social media. He wrote, two dogsleds won't do it. Only the USA can increase security there. We got this question from Monica who says, why does everyone say NATO will end over Greenland, Denmark, the UK, France? These are all NATO allies, of course. If the U.S. takes over NATO territory, the question is, does this end NATO?

45:25And Monica says, why does everybody say that? Won't NATO simply kick the United States out, Osma? No. NATO will not kick the United States out in any meaningful way in major part because financially NATO survives on the United States. It's an argument that you've heard President Trump make. is that the U.S. has paid, in his view, its sort of unfair share. It has been subsidizing NATO. Look, whether or not you would sort of agree with President Trump's characterization, the truth is that financially, the United States has been providing a lot of NATO's backing. You heard, I would also say, sort of, I think, the veracity of why the U.S.

46:01and the Trump administration believes no one's really going to stand up to them on Greenland. When you heard Stephen Miller the other week say, essentially that very point, that no one in his view was going to really fight militarily for Greenland. The thing I think that's interesting, though, about NATO is whether or not it survives or not, it will be a very different kind of NATO if the United States decides to unilaterally annex territory that belongs to another NATO member. It's already going to be a very different kind of NATO when the United States is threatening to take over the territory of a NATO ally.

46:36I mean, it just matters. But because the question for me is, it's not really an issue of whether or not other European nations decide to kick the U.S. out. The question is, what's the purpose of NATO? Does it just cease to exist? Does it have a slow death? I mean, there doesn't need to be a sort of formal declaration. I mean, maybe there does because it is a proper security alliance. But it really won't have any teeth and backing and substance to it. And already you're seeing a number of European leaders respond really, really nervously about what lies ahead. Greg Karlstrom, President Trump has repeatedly said that this takeover of Greenland needs to happen for national security reasons.

47:12Many members of Congress, including several Republicans, have said that that's just not true. The United States gets what it needs already from Greenland with multiple bases. The United States can have more if it wants it. A takeover is absolutely not necessary in practical terms. Can you fact check a little bit around statements about Russian ships and Chinese submarines off the coast of Greenland and whether a takeover is actually needed? I think not for the first time. President Trump is exaggerating when he talks about Russian and Chinese destroyers and submarines, which, as you say, in his mind are lurking off the coast of Greenland.

47:48It's not that it's never happened. There have been certainly Russian submarines deployed there in the past. But it's not happening at the scale that Donald Trump suggests that it's happening at. I mean, say what you will about NATO, but one thing it has been pretty good at over the years is keeping American adversaries out of the North Atlantic. But it's, you know, it's one of these cases where Trump has the kernel of a point, but he gets the details of it wrong. If he thinks there needs to be more of a focus on Arctic security, he's right about that. There are places where this is happening, where Russian and Chinese warships are sort of butting heads with the U.S.

48:26Navy, where Russian aircraft are testing the airspace and the air defenses of NATO members. But where that's happening, it's not really off the coast of Greenland. It's in the Pacific, actually. It's off the coast of Alaska, where we've seen, as competition in the Arctic has heated up in recent years, we've seen more and more of these provocative sorts of deployments by Russia and China. So, yeah, there needs to be a focus on security and defense in the Arctic. But Greenland doesn't really have anything to do with what looks like the main emerging theater there, which is on the other side of the United States.

49:00Well, this Trump-led confrontation over Greenland, it rocks NATO, as we've said, and Europe, all while the United States upends trade relationships with its closest allies around the world. We talked about this at the top of the hour, the tectonic shift in the global order. It's a theme for us this hour on the roundup. This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to Beijing to strengthen ties there. Have a listen to what he said. I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new world order. Alex Ward, his voice there, new world order, he really hung that out there, the prime minister of Canada.

49:49I think there are a lot of targets of that statement, but he's making clear they're stepping away from the United States. Yeah. I mean, that trip is as big a symbol. For me, it's a bigger symbol than European sending troops to Greenland. Like, you know, America's big neighbor, you know, lifelong partner basically going to a new lover here for trade relations all because they've been spurned. I mean, not only just the tariffs, but, you know, the talks about being a 51st state. And then you can extrapolate this not only just to Canada, but to tons of countries and allies. I mean, when the U.S. is doing this America First policy, it's basically saying we're going to do our own thing.

50:26You can't stop us. We're not really going to care about values or historical alliances here. This is about what's best for us. And so now what does that do? What has been the argument for why the U.S. should continue the more values and alliance-based foreign policy? It's because it would dissuade other countries and other allies from doing that themselves. And now you're seeing Canada go, okay, if it's a world, eat dog, eat dog world, we're on our own. Meanwhile, the Canadian prime minister in China, Osama Khalid, how are the Chinese and the Russians reacting to American aggression in Greenland?

50:55I mean, right now, I would say in terms of the Chinese and the Russian, we're sort of just seeing broadly a sort of competitive global sphere of influence. But to echo something Alex said, because I have been obsessed this week with Carney's visit. I think it's perhaps the most important undercover story. He is talking about China being a more predictable, stable partner potentially than the United States, all happening in the context of which this big trade deal, keep in mind, negotiated under President Trump's first term. USMCA is supposed to be up for renewal, and President Trump doesn't seem to think that deal is totally relevant.

51:27That for decades and decades and decades was why America was so profitable. Low corruption, predictable, regulated, you know what you're going to get, and now the Canadians think that's not the deal anymore. Well, as promised, we leave Greenland to the side for the moment and move on to Iran, where authorities are increasingly smothering nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy. Protests that began late last month spurred by crippling economic conditions swept across all of Iran's provinces. Now, a week ago, authorities shut off the country from the world with a total Internet blackout.

52:08and protesting Iran's regime is a life-threatening decision.

52:18Sounds from a morgue in Tehran there. You can hear the cries of loved ones of people killed by the regime in Iran. Also this week, a new message from President Trump after earlier threatening military action if protesters were killed. We've been told that the killing in Iran is stopping. It's stopped. It's stopping. And there's no plan for executions or an execution or execution. So I've been told that a good authority will find out about it. And reports on the ground suggest that many protesters, thousands, of course, were killed, have been killed. Iran's foreign minister spoke to Brett Baer of Fox News to address claims about violence from the regime being used to quell protests.

53:04There is no any hanging today or tomorrow or whatever. That Friday, you know, I can tell you, I'm confident about that. There is no plan for hanging at all. This is another piece of misinformation campaign that they have started to provoke President Trump and to drag him into this question, which could have disastrous consequences. So there were changing messages from the president this week. The message at first, if any protesters are killed, the U.S. would respond. Protesters were killed by the thousands. As far as we know, as far as we can see kinetically, the U.S. hasn't responded so far. now reports that Trump may be backing off of that threat, reports that Israel and several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, asked the U.S.

53:59not to bomb Iran now. Greg Karlstrom, where do things stand? What's the latest? Well, it seems as if the protests have ebbed over the past couple of days. There haven't been reports of large-scale demonstrations, but we should say it's very hard to know exactly what is happening inside of Iran because the internet has been shut off for more than a week now, and authorities don't seem to be in any rush to turn it back on. So we're relying on really fragmentary information that has come out via Apache landline calls, Starlink, satellite internet connections, that sort of thing. But it's hardly a comprehensive picture.

54:39But it does seem as if the level of violence that the regime has deployed over the past week or so has scared people into going back home and has quelled the protests, at least for now. But we're talking about thousands of people dead. The latest estimate from one human rights group, they have confirmed almost 2 ,500 protesters who have been killed. They are investigating another 1 ,600 or so reported deaths. And they acknowledge that these numbers are probably incomplete, that the real toll could in fact be even higher. Yeah, and the reported numbers of death have been understandably all over the map because Iran is cut off and people are relying on piecemeal reports, sporadic phone calls and the like.

55:28Well, I mean, the leader of this repressive regime, Ayatollah Khamenei, it's not this first time around the block with threats to the theocratic rule in Iran, 1999 student demonstrations, 2009 mass protests sparked by disputed presidential elections, 2019 demonstrations that were rapidly and brutally suppressed. Most recent pressure was put on the regime in 2022, 2023, Women, Life, and Freedom. That movement in Iran sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Masa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women. The Ayatollah is now 86 years old, Greg Kahlstrom.

56:09Does the supreme leader of this theocracy face his biggest test to date or potentially survive like all the other times I just mentioned? I think it's by far the biggest threat for him and for this regime. And that's not because of the size or the scope of the protest. It's because of the context. I think in which they're taking place. This has been a horrible year for Iran. It's been a year of economic crisis. The currency lost about half of its value in 2025. Inflation is running above 40%. People are really struggling now to afford food and other necessities in Iran. It's been a year of environmental collapse, where at one point in November, there was a real fear that Tehran would run out of water, that the Iranian capital would have to be evacuated because there wouldn't be any water left in Tehran.

57:05And then, of course, it was also a year in which Iran fought a disastrous war against Israel after watching several of its regional proxies and regional allies be smashed in their own conflict. So we've seen the social contract completely break down in Iran. The state cannot provide for people's basic needs. The state cannot protect them from external threats, as we saw in June. And it doesn't have any answers for any of these economic, environmental security problems. It doesn't know what to do about any of these things. So it's not just that there are protesters in the street and they're angry.

57:40It's that the regime, I think, has really lost whatever remaining legitimacy it had. It's facing a real crisis of legitimacy. And while the person who suggests he might have the answers or at least is entitled to power is one crown prince Reza Pallavi, making the case that he should lead Iran. Now, Pallavi's father was the Shah, forced from power in 1979, backed by the United States, ousted in the Islamic Revolution. Reza Pallavi has lived in the United States since that revolution. Osmo, what is Pallavi pitching, and is he a realistic option in the eyes of Washington and the eyes of the world?

58:19So let's tackle the first part of that question, which is, who is he, right? I mean, he's essentially presenting himself and pitching himself as the de facto opposition leader in Iran. But as you say, he's been living here in the United States. In terms of sort of what his feasibility is in being the leader, I think there's a lot of questions. You know, here we'll see him on, for example, CBS Network News doing interviews. It has been a curiosity to me to see how Reza Pahlavi is being presented as such a leader. And there's a few reasons. I mean, no doubt he has fans, monarchists, who want to return to that pre-1979 era.

58:57Are they in Iran or are they just here in the United States? I think the diaspora is somewhat disconnected from the reality of what's going on there. It's hard to know specifically. What I will also say is that he has been presenting himself on TV here in the U.S. as sort of the sole spokesman, meeting with officials within the Trump administration. But I think there's a lot of questions about whether or not he actually has the backing and support, and for two reasons. One I will say is that the Shah himself was seen in many ways as an authoritarian dictator, the Shah's father, in 1979. And so when that revolution occurred, it was not just Islamists.

59:33There were secularists out on the street who wanted some sort of democratic turn for Iran in 1979. Communists, Marxists, lots, yeah. And so it wasn't as if the monarchists were seen as the sole savior at that moment. And so I do think there are legitimate questions about that. The second issue I will pose here is that President Trump himself, he gave an interview to Reuters in which he raised questions about whether or not Pahlavi actually has the background. He says he seems nice, but he expressed uncertainty over whether he would actually be able to muster support within Iran to eventually take over.

1:00:04It reminds me of the comments he gave about the Venezuelan opposition leader, which we all know he has not been. We're going to talk about Venezuela in just one second in relation to Iran. You raise a good analogy, Alex, stand by. But Asma, if it's not the crown prince exiled in the United States, is there any other viable opposition right now if the regime collapses that would be credible to take over and stable enough to do it? I mean, I think it's really hard to know. I mean, civil society has been squashed to some degree within Iran over the years of the Islamic Republic. And so it's not necessarily easy to grow an internal opposition movement.

1:00:40The opposition themselves, my understanding, and this is a lot based, I will say, on my colleagues at BBC Persian, who frankly are well-resourced in the country. It's very hard to get information necessarily flowing inside Iran. But my understanding is the opposition is divided, and so it is difficult to see what could potentially come next. So, Alex Ward, Osma draws a comparison to Venezuela, and it's an apt one, where the regime was removed, but not really. It remains while the opposition leader didn't get the endorsement of President Trump. The regime stayed in power. Trump got the oil. Are there any signs in how Donald Trump's approach to Venezuela and its resources might be a roadmap to what might come in the coming days here in Tehran?

1:01:25Well, let's look at what Venezuela was to Trump. It was a quick win without going into a broader war, which he doesn't want to do, right, and is being advised not to spark. So let's go then to his options in Iran. Well, can you just remove the Ayatollah and then you can work with the regime? Probably not. Take the oil? Probably not. Probably not. So then what are your options? Well, okay, you could bomb in order to support the protesters, but then does that actually help the protesters? Does that get the regime to sort of coalesce more together? Okay, maybe – plus the protests, as we know, are being smashed right now and quashed.

1:01:59And so is it too late now to attack in order to protect the protesters or whatnot? OK, so that's not an option. Then you have Trump asking, OK, well, what could I do? Could I actually change the regime with airstrikes? Because he's not going to put troops on the ground and he doesn't want a broad scale war. So he's being told, no, can't do that because, well, you could. You could go big. You could bomb Iran all over the place, hit a bunch of targets. But the chance that the regime is going to get dislodged after that is small. And then even if it worked, Mr. President, even if that did work and, you know, Ayatollah, Khamenei falls, the regime starts to fall, what do you replace it with?

1:02:33And as we were just discussing, that's a big question too. So I think Trump is now realizing even as military assets are getting in place, even as he's not taking the military option off the table, what he is kind of realizing through his aides and through conversations with the Israelis and other Middle Eastern partners is there aren't easy answers. There's no quick win and no big war I can avoid. What would this president say if he were given the advice, Mr. President, you break it, you own it? I don't think he really cares about that. I mean, that's a great Colin Powell quote. I mean, that was a thing that was brought up to him about Venezuela.

1:03:07And part of the reason, not the main reason, but part of the reason he accepted Delce Rodriguez, who was Maduro's vice president, to stay was because it wouldn't break Venezuela necessarily. And clearly there were some discussions beforehand where they would have some sort of deal. And the feeling here was, you know, if you put in Machado or the opposition, then Venezuela could potentially be unstable and therefore broken. So what Trump is really trying to do with Iran is, is there a way for me to help in which I don't break and therefore own Iran? It's been almost two weeks since the U.S. military's raid on Caracas and the capture of Nicolas Maduro.

1:03:42On Thursday, acting President Delce Rodriguez delivered a fiery State of the Union address advocating for foreign investment in that country's oil industry. And on the very same day, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado visited the White House. Machado spoke to Fox News about her meeting with President Trump. It went very well. I'm very grateful for the opportunity I had to speak with President Trump. Something I've been looking forward for a very long time. It was a huge responsibility because I did it on behalf of the Venezuelan people that appreciate so much what he has done for not only the freedom of the Venezuelan people, but I would say the whole.

1:04:28Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. And as part of her visit on Thursday, she gave it to Donald Trump. It now sits in the corner of the Oval Office. Whoever wrote that, the Oval Office does not have corners. Let's just do that in the postmortem of the show. It sits in the side of the Oval Office. In exchange, Machado left the West Wing of the White House with a presidential swag bag featuring the golden signature of our president, Donald Trump. Now, the Nobel Committee did issue a statement making clear that you can give the metal, the metal, the gold to anyone you like. Nobel Prizes are strictly non-transferable.

1:05:09You may have the hardware. You don't have the software or even the firmware, according to the Nobel Committee. Greg Karlstrom, was there anything of significance aside from the optics of the Nobel Peace Prize that came out of Machado's meeting with Trump? Any indication that his views on her viability or her ability to lead Venezuela have changed at all? I mean, the optics of it were something. I think that's the first time anyone has written presidential swag bag in a script. That was something to see. But no, on substance, I mean, it remains the case that Trump is not looking to install her in power.

1:05:47It seems as if the American position is when there are democratic elections at some point in the future in Venezuela, she is welcome to run in those elections. But for now, they have made this choice. As Alex said, they made this deal with Rodriguez and she is their woman in Venezuela. And what that comes down to is a feeling that Machado just doesn't have the power on the ground to keep things in line. I mean, you have a somewhat factious system in Caracas where, you know, there's concern about will elements of the army want to break away and try to take power, about a possible power struggle between the interior minister and the defense minister and various other power brokers.

1:06:29And the feeling is that Rodriguez does have some ability to corral all of those different factions and keep them in line. And Machado doesn't do that. And so it's a simple choice for Trump there. And again, it seems to me very much like a parallel when we talk about Pallavi in Iran. It's the same argument. Now, the United States has begun cashing in on Venezuela's oil reserves, as promised by President Trump. Take the oil. On Wednesday, the United States sold$500 million worth of Venezuelan oil, according to the White House. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the funds from those sales will go to Venezuela eventually.

1:07:06But for now, they're being held in a bank in Qatar. So let me get this straight. Venezuela's oil money is in a Qatari bank where President Trump can spend it as he wishes with no authority from Congress. somebody straighten me out here. What's going on? What don't you get? I'm kidding. Article one of the Constitution is one thing I'm not getting. No, of course. I mean, this is all being done because Donald Trump can, because Congress has permitted him an environment in which he can do these kinds of things, take these kinds of actions without oversight, without any reprimands whatsoever. Now, is any of this legal?

1:07:47It's dicey. There's no question, but it's being done. And who's going to stop him? And that's the whole thing of this whole process, right, is that Donald Trump removed the leader of a country, created a new process, which he is in some ways the viceroy of that country, is now using its resources in order to enrich the United States for payback, he claims that for resources that were taken, and also to somehow economically support Venezuela. All of that without congressional support or any other kind of mandate. And is personally in control without congressional mandate of now$500 million soon to grow drastically of Venezuelan money that he can distribute as he sees fit.

1:08:29Yeah. I mean, the reason I'm sort of still dumbfounded and you can hear it in my voice is because this is pretty unprecedented and there's really no one I've talked to, legal experts or lawmakers, anybody who knows what they can do now. Gang, let's turn to Gaza now as we do nearly every week here on the Roundup. On Wednesday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff announced that the Gaza peace plan has entered what they call phase two. It's part of President Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza under a ceasefire agreement reached in October. Now, as part of phase two, both Israel and Hamas have agreed on a committee of 15 Palestinian technocrats who will manage Gaza.

1:09:11Egypt's foreign minister said the deal paves the way for the committee to, quote, assume responsibility for managing daily life and providing basic services to the steadfast Palestinian people in Gaza. Gaza is home to more than two million people, extremely limited ability to leave or reenter the territory now. Now, the governments of Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey work together to pick the members of this technocratic 15-member committee that I just mentioned, Greg Karlstrom. What more do we know about the committee and what it's supposed to do in the short term here? So this committee is meant to be one of three entities responsible for governing Gaza.

1:09:52It is made up of Palestinians. They're meant to be technocrats. And then above that committee, you're supposed to have what's called the executive committee that will be made up of non-Palestinians based outside of Gaza. And then at the very top, you have what's called the board of peace, which is chaired by Donald Trump and which will include probably a number of other heads of state. So naming these 15 Palestinians, including Ali Shath, the former deputy minister in the Palestinian government, he's from Gaza, he's been named to lead this committee. They are the ones who are supposed to actually provide governance on the ground, who are supposed to work on reconstruction and providing basic services to people in Gaza.

1:10:35But there's a lot that's still unclear about the scope of their authority and how much power are they really going to have, given that 50 percent of Gaza is still occupied by Israeli troops and all of the border crossings going in and out are very tightly controlled. Where is the money going to come from? Where are their resources going to come from? Obviously, they're going to need contributions from abroad if they want to do any kind of reconstruction. Who is going to stump up for that? And then there's also been no progress towards standing up this so-called international stabilization force, which is meant to be a peacekeeping force that goes into Gaza and tries to disarm Hamas and tries to establish security.

1:11:17So it's a good step to name this committee. It's long overdue, but it's good that there's been some progress towards appointing it. But there's still a lot that has to be clarified about what they're going to do and what resources they're going to do it with. The realities on the ground in Gaza with Israeli occupation continuing, Hamas elements all over Gaza still continuing and armed. These Palestinians in Gaza are skeptical. What second phase or first phase? They haven't even started the first phase yet. How can they start with the second? They've been bombing since this morning. They targeted Tufar and Zaitun.

1:11:53Houses are coming down. Which second phase? We don't want ink or paper. We want real action on the ground. We don't want it to be like every other time, just words on paper, and then things stay the same or even get worse. Azma Khalid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling this U.S. announcement on phase two largely symbolic. Hamas, as I mentioned, remains in armed presence in Gaza. Israeli strikes on Thursday killed six people. Health officials in Gaza, health ministry ministered by Hamas, at least formally say more than 440 people have been killed since the October ceasefire agreement.

1:12:26and Netanyahu says Israel is still waiting for Hamas to return the body of at least of the last remaining hostage in Gaza. How confident are the people closest to these negotiations, but not beyond the announcements of phase two? Sure. I mean, when you say who's the people who are most confident, I would say is this Trump administration, right? Whether we're talking about President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, or someone like Jared Kushner out there saying that this is a historic moment. That degree of bravado or optimism, whatever you want to call it, is what you hear from the Trump administration.

1:12:59Anybody else? Not really that I have heard. I mean, on the ground, you mentioned Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. He doesn't seem to sound particularly optimistic. I mean, one key issue, well, I think there's two key issues. One is the disarming of Hamas. Hamas has historically not seemed willing to give up its arms. And that's really a non-starter also. Nor share power. Yes. Though that, I think, It was striking to me to hear them seem sort of welcoming to the idea of this new technocratic board. The other big issue is sort of the restoration of Gaza. I mean, I was struck by when the first phase one was announced in October.

1:13:35We had a woman in Gaza on our show, and she was ecstatic. There was so much hope that the sort of daily bombardment would end. And as you mentioned, and we just heard, that hasn't entirely stopped for people. You're talking about, what, over 400 Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed, according to the health ministry there in Gaza. The Israeli military says three of its soldiers have died as well, have also been killed. And so at this point, I think there's a lot of questions about what phase two will mean in reality. And it doesn't sound like Israelis and Palestinians on the ground feel particularly optimistic.

1:14:08Alex Ward, appointment of three layered committees, as Greg Karlstrom described, versus realities on the ground in Gaza. Yeah, I mean, the Israelis are snickering behind the scenes. They don't want this to happen, part of it, because they would like more control in Gaza, but also because how do you go ahead and announce phase two when you don't have, as has been noted, a stabilization force ready to go, a disarmed Hamas, a Hamas that will agree to give up power, when you don't know how you're going to get these technocratic people in, when the bombings haven't stopped? How are you going to move on to phase two?

1:14:39The only—I mean, even U.S. officials are like, what are they doing? I mean, the general feeling here is that they're just trying to ram it through. They're just trying to push this process forward and not let it stall because the Israelis want it to stall. So the appearance of momentum, it sounds like, is very important here. Absolutely. And there's some value to that, right? Like pushing, just sort of going, don't let things sputter, just kind of push ahead. But these are really serious promises that they're making, right? They're saying, the U.S. government is saying to the people of Gaza, we're about to get governance going your way.

1:15:12Things are about to be a lot brighter. And all of these problems that you're hearing, whether it's the Hamas, et cetera, et cetera, that's going to be solved. We expect it to be solved. And then they go out and they put out things like, you know, as we reported the journal, Project Sunrise, this fanciful idea of turning Gaza into like some sort of high-tech AI power techno-utopia, which, you know, God willing, someday, maybe, hopefully. But right now we're at the point of can you get us basic water? Can you get us food? Is there sanitation? And so to basically say, we're now moving to plan two, which is about governance, when we're still having questions about the war going on, feels not only just premature, but frankly, a little callous.

1:15:54So lots and lots of momentum from the PR operations of the Trump administration and those negotiating for peace in Gaza. The reality on the ground, as described by all three of our analysts here, Greg Osma and Alex, far, far different from the public relations operations of this peace process. We'll return to Gaza in future weeks. We always do. There's a lot of work to do. So we'll be back. Let's talk about Russia and Ukraine, which really looms in the background of so many of the other discussions we've been having this hour, including where we started, Greenland, the future of NATO, the health of NATO, and the relationship of the United States with its European allies.

1:16:36We're just a month away from the four-year mark of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And this week, in an interview with Reuters, President Trump once again said it was Ukraine and not Russia holding up a peace deal. Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to make a deal and that the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was, quote, less ready to make a deal. Alex Ward, it feels like all of this from a peace deal out of reach to Trump's return to rhetoric blaming Ukraine is like right back where we started a year ago. I think we had this exact discussion a year ago, probably around this console.

1:17:16What do we know about what might actually be holding up a deal now? EU leaders met in Paris on security guarantees. There seemed to be some momentum there over the course of the last week. But what's the reality here? The answer is Russia. It was always Russia. Russia's the one that invaded. Russia's the one that is unwilling to make a deal. I mean, some of the terms that the U.S. has put on the table, including with some European allies, have been immensely favorable to Moscow. I mean, deals that they, I mean, in some sort of world, they probably should take because it would have given them Ukrainian territory.

1:17:48It would have given them de facto support from the U.S. It would have given them some money and economic deals. But the issue here is that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has these designs to keep the invasion going, believes he will eventually win. He might not be able to take the whole of the country, but he could take even more and believes he could maybe with more war could get more favorable terms. What's up with Trump reverting now to the status quo ante? It's Ukraine's fault again replaying that baseline. I mean it seems like that's his gut instinct though, right? I mean, it's always been his gut instinct to align himself more with Vladimir Putin.

1:18:21And it feels like they're—I mean, I shouldn't say it feels, but, you know, there's been this classic saying when you look at the Trump administration of Trump is often influenced by the last person in the room. And so I think we've seen him ebb and flow a little bit in his sort of morale or attitude towards the Ukrainian leader. But by and large, his instinct from the campaign days has been that he wants this war to end. He does not want American dollars going to support Ukraine and that he ultimately believes that this is sort of an issue for Russia and Ukraine to sort out. Well, meanwhile, Russia has once again targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the middle of the freezing cold winter in Ukraine.

1:19:01Thousands of households without power in the Kiev region. Here's one resident without heat taking shelter in centers. This is Irina who spoke with Al Jazeera. We had no heating in the apartments for four full days, and everything froze very badly. Now it's very difficult to restart the system. Some apartments have heating, some do not. Greg Karlstrom, what have these attacks meant for Ukrainians and the corollary? What's the strategy now for Russia, for Vladimir Putin, who European leaders have been warning for years, has been stringing Donald Trump along with the hopes of peace and wanting to make a deal?

1:19:40Well, these attacks on energy infrastructure, I mean, it's a strategy of trying to inflict as much misery as possible on the population in Ukraine. It's close to zero degrees right now in Kyiv, zero degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures have been below freezing for days. And as you say, people don't have heat at home. They've had to evacuate or they've urged people to evacuate parts of the Ukrainian capital because there just isn't enough electricity available to provide heat. Ukraine is only meeting about 60 percent of its demand for power right now. And one thing that Russia has done this winter, differently compared to two years past, is instead of targeting the generating infrastructure in Ukraine, instead of targeting power plants and things like that, which are easier to defend because there's a limited number of them and they're fairly large installations, Russia is instead aiming at the substations that are part of Ukraine's electricity network.

1:20:38There are thousands of those spread all across the country. It's impossible to defend all of them. And then once they're hit, it's very difficult in some cases to get the spare parts and then go out and make repairs. So they've used this more distributed strategy of targeting the substations, and they've had a lot of success in knocking out parts of Ukraine's electric grid. There were reports this week, finally, Asma, from the front that Russia has lost an estimated 400 ,000 both to death and casualties in 2025 alone. Staggering. Mm-hmm. We're actually doing an episode this coming week on the Russian casualty numbers with one of our colleagues at BBC Russian who's been literally looking for months and months.

1:21:21That's her job of counting the dead in Russia. It's not an easy job to just sort of assess what the casualty numbers are. Nonetheless, we see Putin being sort of eager to continue on. I want to take a moment and get into your reporter's notebooks, if I can. Tell us what stories. We like to end the show this way. Tell us what stories you're watching out for next week, what we should be aware of in a quick thought. Greg Karlstrom, you go first. Not surprisingly, I'll be watching Iran. The protests have ebbed for now, but I don't think this round of unrest is done. And then along with that, I'll be watching the progress of the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier group that is being moved from the South China Sea to the Middle East, once it arrives in the region.

1:22:03I think the possibility of some American military strike goes up quite considerably. Asma? Obviously, Iran, Iran, Iran. Also a bit of Greenland. While we've been here in the studio, President Trump announced that he may use tariffs as well for folks who don't come in line with his plans on Greenland. But if just briefly I can mention, the other big thing I've been doing, I think a lot of listeners probably know me as an American politics reporter, But next year, Trump's inauguration, Mark, I want to look at how key foreign policy decisions he's made, whether it's around deportations, tariffs, are affecting people in this first year.

1:22:36Alex Ward. Davos, baby. The world's a leader going up the magic mountain. But Trump is going as well with a pretty large delegation. He's going to make a case that his economic plans, tariffs, et cetera, have been a great idea. But also there will be a decent amount of diplomatic movement there. Trump could meet with Zelensky there. You could also see maybe some Iranian meeting with Steve Whitcoff. So not just a playground, but also a diplomacy ground. Well, before we go for the hour, one more bit of news from the Arctic and Americans offending allies in the Arctic. No, not Greenland, not Greenland this time.

1:23:12It's Iceland. You've heard the president refer to Canada as the 51st state. This week, former Missouri congressman, Republican Billy Long, now Trump's nominee for ambassador to Iceland. Well, he set off a minor diplomatic war in a private comment referring to Iceland, quote, as America's 52nd state. This is the nominee to be ambassador to Iceland. Long later apologized, but not before Iceland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded answers from the U.S. embassy there. In Reykjavik, more American diplomacy. in the high Arctic of the world. I want to thank Alex Ward. I want to thank Asma Khalid and Greg Karlstrom of The Economist.

1:23:54Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Aline Humphries is our senior producer and editor for 1A On Demand. Maya Garg is our acting executive producer. And this program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. This is 1A.

1:24:16Thank you.