The News Roundup For January 30, 2026

26:45Even the base is noticing the numbers. Even they are not immune, which is fascinating. We have to take a quick break, but still more to come. The economy, affordability, and a lot more.

27:01Let's get back to the roundup with this message that we got from Sarah in Virginia. The murders of good and pretty in Minneapolis are tragic, and they're among many egregious wrongs committed by DHS. Everyone deserves to go about their business and have their human and constitutional rights protected. They don't have to be poster children of wonderfulness. They certainly don't have to be white. Sarah, thank you for that comment. Before we took a break, I said that we were going to talk about Pam Bondi and Minneapolis, and we've been talking about the midterms, and all of those things are coming together now.

27:36Megan Scully, Pam Bondi wrote a letter to officials in Minneapolis this week offering them a way out of the immigration crackdown on their streets. What did the attorney general have to say? Basically, Bondi is wanting information on voter rolls in Minneapolis. Elections, of course, are run by states. They are not run by the federal government. And she wants details. Minnesota and 23 other states, I believe, have pushed back on the federal government wanting to get this information. The federal government has said, under the Trump administration, has said it wants it to help them clear the roles of ineligible candidates.

28:16There's no evidence that there's widespread voter fraud, I should definitely say, leading into this. But the inference in this letter was essentially turn over your roles, give us the information that we want, and maybe you'll benefit in return. Turn over your voter rolls less than a year before the midterms, and maybe you'll benefit while this crackdown is on your streets. Well, that brings us to Atlanta in the presidential swing state of Georgia, which Donald Trump lost in 2020. On Wednesday, the FBI raided and searched the main elections office in Fulton County, Georgia. The county says they were served a warrant for records related to the 2020 election.

29:00Agents took 700 boxes of ballots, voting machine records, and more. Amanda Becker, what do we know? Yeah, so they raided the voting center on Wednesday. And let's go back a little bit. If people remember right after the 2020 election, in those weeks where we were waiting for days or weeks where we were waiting for kind of the final votes to be tallied. People, election workers in this county, in this area, were receiving death threats. They could not go to the grocery. Things got very heated. Trump has challenged the results in Georgia multiple times and been told every time that it was by the book.

29:39So, you know, the Department of Justice had already sued the county clerk of courts for election materials. That was met with a motion to dismiss. But when they showed up on Wednesday, it said they could seize physical ballots, ballot images, and voter rolls from the 2020 election. Of course, people have responded to this very strongly, including Senator Ossoff from the state called it a sore losers crusade because the administration has been told so many times by different courts and officials that everything was by the book in Georgia in 2020. So this is, you know, all kind of taken in tandem with what they're asking for in Minnesota, really setting the stage for types of potential interference in the upcoming midterms is what election experts are worried about.

30:28Well, Shelby in Birmingham says, are we preparing to see our own Maduro election in November, 2026? A question sort of typical rigged election of authoritarian regimes. I think Shelby in Birmingham has a question that a lot of Americans are asking themselves when they see the attorney general asking for voter rolls and seeing the FBI raid voting facilities. Rob Pitts is the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. On Thursday, he talked to reporters about this FBI raid. As long as those documents were here in Fulton County, in our elections hub, Under our care, I was confident, confident that they were safe and secure.

31:09Once they left that facility last night in those FBI trucks, I don't know where they are now. I don't know who has them. I don't know what they're doing with them. Are they opening the boxes? Are they stuffing other ballots in there? I have no clue. I can use my imagination. Rob Pitts, Taylor Poplarz, is talking about chain of custody there of ballots from six years ago. Mm-hmm. This is a story that occupies the Trump administration every single day. It's on the president's mind almost every single hour. And I think it's notable you talk about Attorney General Bondi's letter to Minnesota. The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was photographed in Fulton County.

31:47Yeah, okay. Why was the director of national intelligence, who has responsibility primarily for foreign actors coordinating the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NSA, go down the list, that's her job. What was she doing wearing a baseball cap on the phone kind of lurking around this FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia. Why? So the Wall Street Journal had a great report out where they talked about how apparently Tulsi Gabbard has taken on this project of trying to prove that there was foreign interference in the 2020 election that rigged it against President Trump, which of course there's no basis in reality for that.

32:18She's apparently, according to the journal, compiling a report for it. And they alluded to the fact that it's one of her attempts to stay in the president's good graces. I will also add, though, that the president regularly lies that the 2020 election was stolen. And this week he did it in Davos on the world stage, on the world stage. And this week, hours after the Fulton County raid took place, he went on kind of a reposting binge on his truth social account. I just want to read part of one of the posts that he shared that the president is sharing. It claims that Italian officials used military satellites to help hack U.S.

32:52voting machines in 2020, flipping votes from Trump to Biden using CIA developed tools like hammer and scorecard. These are the types of conspiracies that are occupying the president's mind every day. And what we're seeing is members of his cabinet, like the director of national intelligence are now saying, well, we're going to act on that and try to find it, even though there is just no basis in reality for any of it. President in that social media tirade that you mentioned more than 60 posts on this and many other grievances that he has. Also reposted debunked videos from Fulton County. The very same videos that Rudy Giuliani was made to pay$148 million for lying about, for defamation.

33:33The president is still posting, still saying that they prove his case, that the election was stolen. It's remarkable. It is. And what people, sure, Fulton County is a deeply blue area. And you could argue, okay, that's a Democratic stronghold. But the state of Georgia is fairly Republican and hard right Republicans who were in leadership in 2020 were the ones who oversaw these recounts and said there was no there there. Stinson in Maryland says this. I believe the presence of DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, was strange. The main issue is not that but what the Fed's justification and authority were for this search itself.

34:05Ostensibly, Megan Scully, they had a search warrant signed by a judge. How did they get it? I'm not sure about the actual the background there of how they got it, certainly through perhaps a federal judge. But I do think it is important, you know, the questions about the safety of and security of the upcoming midterm elections. And a hallmark of our democracy is the is our confidence in free and fair elections. And it is very damaging to our democracy when Americans begin to doubt that. As you said, you know, it was conservative state officials in Georgia who upheld the election returns in 2020.

34:50I think that's very important to note. And that should give some confidence to Americans concerned about this. And I will say, once again, these elections are run by states, not by the federal government. Well, another important foundation of the democracy is confidence in our economy, that it's being run by objective professionals and being run with an eye toward markets, not toward political patronage. President Trump announced Kevin Warsh, a former governor at the Federal Reserve, is going to be his pick to replace Jerome Powell when his term as Fed chair ends in May. Now, the selection came today.

35:26It comes at a crucial moment for the central bank, whose officials have faced a barrage of attacks and pressure from Donald Trump to lower interest rates. Powell's been the central bank's chair since 2018 when Donald Trump nominated him during his first term, even though he blames Joe Biden for Jerome Powell's term. It was indeed Donald Trump who nominated him. What do we know about Kevin Warsh, Megan Scully, and how he might run the central bank if he gets the job? Sure. I'll give you a quick rundown on that. But then I will say this all goes back to Pam Bondi again. She's coming up again and again.

35:59You don't say. Kevin Warsh was a Fed governor during the George W. Bush administration when he was just in his mid 30s. He has been advising Trump on economic policy, you know, through his campaigns for several years. He was considered for the Fed pick back in 2018. So his name has been in the mix for a long time. In the past, he has been hesitant to do the kind of aggressive interest rate cutting that Trump wants. But he certainly changed his tune in recent years. He would ordinarily be somebody who could get through the Senate pretty easily. However, I will say Tom Tillis is— Who we just heard from.

36:44We just heard from is also fighting the administration on this front because of Pam Bondi's investigation into Jerome Powell and into the Fed over the renovations that are going on at the Federal Reserve headquarters. So this could get ugly. Now, hang on. Tom Tillis says you're investigating the Fed chairman criminally. You have a new nominee for Fed chair. And guess what? But he will not be approved over my senator objections until you are not investigating Jerome Powell. Absolutely. And even John Thune last night said, I don't see a path forward for confirming Warsh with Tillis in opposition.

37:29Tillis can gum up the works in the Senate Banking Committee, which then essentially would force a 60-vote threshold on the Senate floor. And Republicans know they do not have 60 votes in the current environment to get him confirmed. That would require Democrat support. Donald Trump has also gone after Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court, Taylor Poplarz, appears skeptical of his authority to fire her. But here are senators, Republican senators, saying, oh, no, no, no, no, you're not going to take political control of the Fed while you're prosecuting the Fed chairman. There's deep concern.

38:01The Fed is supposed to be and has long been viewed as this independent, you know, central bank of the world. It's not just the U.S. economy, but it's the world economy. And even Republicans, especially those who sit on the Senate Banking Committee, which is a pretty bipartisan and functioning committee, they're concerned about this becoming political. And a lot of people view Kevin Warsh, even though he has this history in the Bush White House, as somebody who's just becoming kind of a yes man for the president. And that's something that Democrats feel, but also some of these Republicans. Well, the Federal Reserve held rates steady this week.

38:30They've been cutting rates, I think, three times in a row, right, Megan? But this week they held them steady. So seeing maybe some stability in the economy if they're holding rates steady. Meanwhile, this is all supposed to be about employment and prices. That's what it's supposed to be about. And affordability has been a top issue for voters. Recent CBS poll found that 76 % of Americans polled say their incomes are not keeping up with inflation. And they would know because they balance their own checkbooks. President Trump addressed affordability at an event in Iowa on Tuesday, blaming Democrats for high prices and mocking the very idea of affordability.

39:07This election's all about affordability. Well, they're the ones that caused the problem. But nobody knows that. You know, people forget. So they say, oh, affordability, let's vote for the Democrats. It's no affordability. They caused a tremendous price increases. It was caused by the worst inflation we've ever had. Amanda Becker, Trump mentioned needing to win the midterm elections in his speech. He's talked to other Republicans this week behind closed doors, behind the scenes, saying if he if he doesn't win the midterms, he'll be impeached. He seems to know which way the wind is blowing. How well is this new strategy working for him to to talk about affordability in some way?

39:51this shift. So I think it's a little bit early to see how to tell how it's working. He did manage in this speech in Iowa to stay mostly on message, which, as we know, the president often has the tendency to veer off into other topics, to not read the teleprompter, to go into his familiar anecdotes that he likes to tell. He said he said inflation had been defeated, which is false. He said the 2020 presidential election was rigged, which is false. He talked about running for a - He also attacked Ilhan Omar, as we heard, and he continued attacking Jerome Powell, the Fed Reserve chair. So he wasn't able to, even in this first speech where he's unveiling kind of this new focus on the economy because he knows that immigration enforcement is not going to win him the midterms at this point, not going to win the party the midterms.

40:42So he's trying to go back to this issue that is why a lot of people voted for him, which is rising cost of living and people feeling, you know, crunched. But even in this first speech, he couldn't stay away from the misinformation about the election and attacks on, you know, political rivals and airing of grievances. Well, also this week, some important news from the world of health. The nation's largest organization of pediatricians broke with the CDC for the first time in 30 years to issue its own guidance on vaccines for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday that it's going to continue to recommend that kids get vaccines that protect against 18 potentially life-threatening diseases.

41:23That's after the CDC, under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., changed its guidance earlier this month to reduce its recommended vaccines for all children from 18 to 11. And public health experts, the ones who pay attention to data, say those changes are not supported by decades and decades of reliable scientific data on the effectiveness and the safety of vaccines and the vaccine recommendations for children. Well, as we wind up the hour, guys, I want to make you aware if you're planning to attend award-winning composer Philip Glass's world premiere of his symphony, Lincoln, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

42:02Think again. Those tickets might not be any good. On Tuesday, Philip Glass pulled the premiere from the Kennedy Center, citing conflicting values with the Cultural Center's leadership and the symphony's message. Now, over the past year, President Trump and his handpicked board of trustees at the Kennedy Center have placed the center in the middle of the fight against what MAGA, Wright, and the coalition calls woke culture. Other artists like opera legend Renee Fleming, banjo player Bella Fleck of Bella Fleck and the Flecktones also say they won't perform. Now, Taylor, quickly, just as we head out for the hour, what's happening at the Kennedy Center when honorees like Renee Fleming and Philip Glass are pulling performances at this historic venue?

42:50It's in many ways becoming the president's own personal performing arts venue. He put his name on it, you know, kind of out of step with the rules. He fired the board, installed himself as chairman, and he's having constant events there, including on Thursday night, the premiere of the First Lady's documentary about herself. So it's becoming kind of a MAGA world venue rather than the performing arts venue that it's been for decades. I want to thank our panel for this part of the roundup. Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for the 19th. Megan Scully, Congress editor for Bloomberg News. And Taylor Popolars, national political reporter for Spectrum News based at the White House.

43:23And don't go anywhere because right after this, we have another panel with all of the headlines from around the world. More in a moment.

43:35Now let's get to the international edition of the Roundup. About once a century, maybe twice, geopolitics resets, power shifts, the balance of power shifts, and global politics enters a new paradigm. The end of World War II in 1945 qualifies. So does the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. You get where I'm going here. Will historians of the future look back on President Donald Trump's new imperialism and rattling of America's alliances and decide 2026 was a year that changed everything? And of course, renewed threats against Iran. Marco Rubio faces lawmakers about Venezuela and tragic new numbers from Ukraine, the cost of Russia's invasion at close to 2 million soldiers dead, wounded, or missing.

44:23Here to talk about all of that and so much more, Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic, covering national security and the Defense Department. Hi, Nancy. Hi, great to be with you. Nancy, we should point out there's a big snowstorm hit Washington, D.C., or usually here, and today they snowed you in. They snowed me in on day six, actually, of the snowstorm. The plows came, and Nancy Youssef's car is stuck where it is, so that's why you're hearing her over the line. We're happy to have you nonetheless. Greg Myrie, however, owns a pickaxe, he told me, and he got out of the ice and snow to make it into the studio.

44:57He's national security correspondent with NPR with a focus on the intelligence community. Great to have you here, Greg. Hey, hi, Todd. And congrats to your pickaxe. And Joyce Karam is here. You might know her as senior news editor at All Monitor. She has a new role, editor-in-chief. Congratulations to you, Joyce. Todd, great to be with you. All right, we're going to start in Iran, gang. President Trump, of course, has turned his attention back to the Islamic Republic this week. Popular protests over the state of the economy spread across Iran late last year and have shaken the regime, which has responded with brutal violence.

45:31But Donald Trump didn't mention any of that this week as American air and sea power approached Iranian shores. The president took to social media on Wednesday. He demanded that Iran negotiate a new deal over its nuclear program. And if not, Trump said new airstrikes on Iran, unquote, will be far worse than the ones the U.S. conducted on its nuclear enrichment sites last summer. The president is reportedly considering strikes that would target Iran's political leadership and security officials as well. And testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's also the acting national security advisor, said preemptive strikes on Iran are possible.

46:13The president always reserves the preemptive defensive option. In essence, if we have indications that in fact they're going to attack our troops in the region to defend our personnel in the region. So I think it's wise and prudent to have a force posture within the region that could respond and potentially, not necessarily what's going to happen, but if necessary, preemptively prevent the attack against thousands of American servicemen and other facilities in the region and our allies. I hope it doesn't come to that. But that's, I think, what you're seeing now is the ability to posture assets in the region to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel.

46:48They certainly have the capability to do it because they've amassed thousands and thousands of ballistic missiles that they've built. So that's a preemptive defense option, according to the Secretary of State there. Nancy Youssef, President Trump demanded Iran give up all of its enriched uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons. What else did he demand? Well, he has said that he wants negotiations in the past. He has said that he wants the protesters to stop. But you're getting at a key point. The president has so far laid out, through sourcing anyway, potential targets, but he hasn't laid out the specific aims of the strikes.

47:25And so what we've heard from him is threats that if the Iranians don't negotiate, don't agree to some sort of deal to get rid of their nuclear program, that he would launch strikes. I think the challenge with that is what do strikes do towards that? While strikes can do damage to facilities and there can be assassination of scientists, it doesn't get rid of all the enriched uranium stockpiles and you can't sort of bomb your way to that sort of expertise that would allow the Iranians to rebuild their nuclear program. And so we're in this period where once again, as he did in the run-up to strikes in Venezuela, he's put out a tweet telling the leadership of Iran that time is running out and that they need to strike a deal soon or they will essentially feel the U.S.

48:11military might. To what aim, though, we still don't know. That's the nuclear aspect, the enrichment aspect, Greg Myrie. What else has the president demanded of Iran as he presses for a deal, he says, for negotiations now with the threat of the tip of the American spear in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean? Yeah, he hasn't been entirely clear, as Nancy noted. So last June, the U.S. joined Israel and specifically targeted nuclear sites, did damage. We don't know precisely where that ended up. A couple weeks ago, he was talking about the protesters in Iran who've been killed by the thousands.

48:46Didn't the president also demand that Iran give up its missiles that could strike Israel and give up support for Iranian proxies? True. And obviously that's the close partner of its nuclear program is it does have these missiles. We saw them hit Israel. Most of them were shot down in a combination of U.S.-Israeli teamwork last June. But Iran could strike again. And so that's a big factor as well. And again, Iran has always resisted negotiating away its missile program and what it says is peaceful nuclear enrichment, although the U.S. and many others say that's not the case. Joyce Curran, the president, also said that Iran must give up all support for these proxies I mentioned, groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen.

49:34How is that demand going down in Tehran? Is it realistic? And as the Iranians calculate what to do next with a president who just showed he's willing to invade Venezuela, how are they thinking about those demands we just mentioned? nuclear enrichment, missiles, as Greg Myrie mentioned, and support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups? Very good question. So there's two tiers here. On the nuclear front, the Iranians are saying, okay, we're willing to sit down, we're willing to talk, we reserve the right to enrichment because that's protected under the NPT. On the missiles issue, they're saying, wait a minute, this is not something we're going to give up, and this is not something we think you could destroy.

50:20We rearmed very much most of our missile stockpiles since the June strikes, and we will continue to do so. Now, the problem for President Trump, as Nancy mentioned, is even if he carries out airstrikes, they're not enough to eliminate the nuclear program and the missile program. So what the administration seemed to be looking at as a gradual escalation of coercive measure, similar to Venezuela, that maybe they could lead to regime change in Iran. Obviously, there is also the diplomatic track. There are meetings happening in Turkey. We know President Erdogan spoke to the Iranians today. The foreign minister is visiting.

51:06So there are efforts to try to at least come to the table and bring a nuclear agreement together. The issue with the proxies, the Iranians are nowhere near giving up support for the proxies. And those proxies, the ones you mentioned, Hezbollah, the Houthis, militias in Iraq are saying we're going to retaliate if Iran is hit. And they also have very much rearmed since the last round of fighting. Nancy Youssef, on the nuclear issue, President Trump claimed over and over that the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last summer completely obliterated, his words, completely obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities.

51:47So why is he demanding the country accept a new nuclear deal now? I thought that was unnecessary. Because they didn't, very simply. I mean, the strikes that you saw in last June with those bunker busing munitions hit facilities. But as Joyce noted, it didn't completely destroy the nuclear program. And in fact, there were intelligence assessments that said that by the United States intelligence community that said that there was capability to come back potentially in a matter of months. The president disputed that and that was quite controversial at the time. but destroying the nuclear program is not a matter of an hour-long strike.

52:28It's not, it's, and as Joyce also noted, that they have the right to enrich uranium under the NPT and so this is not a simple issue of if you just do enough strikes, you can destroy the nuclear program. Practically speaking, programs like this have dismantled not through strikes but through a combination of strikes and long negotiations, detailed negotiations. And so that's the limitation of what the United States did in June. It doesn't mean it didn't have any effect, but it certainly wasn't one that in one fell swoop eliminated the nuclear program. Well, let's talk about Iran's reaction and Iran's posture here.

53:08Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi wrote on social media that Iran's military is, quote, prepared with their fingers on the trigger to immediately and powerfully respond to any aggression. a senior advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader had another warning, this one mentioning Israel. He warned in a post written in Hebrew on X Twitter that any military action from the United States would lead to immediate action from Iran aimed at, quote, the heart of Tel Aviv. Israel and Iran had a short but devastating war last June. Greg Myrie, how are the Israelis reacting? How are the Americans reacting? I don't think it was a surprise that this is the dynamic.

53:47I'm willing to stipulate they weren't shocked by this news that the heart of Tel Aviv would be struck. But the risk here is a regional war. Oh, absolutely. The Israelis have been relatively quiet. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been hawkish on aggressive action towards Iran. He's not saying a lot right now. Could be for a couple reasons that last June, Israel was in the lead in the attacks and the U.S. joined in. And that's sort of flipped right now where Trump is taking the lead and engaged in the heated rhetoric. There's also the question of whether Israel is fully prepared again for another wave of Iranian missile and drone strikes.

54:28Do they have enough interceptors in place? Is there enough U.S. help in the region? So that may be one of the factors as well. Israel may not feel that it's fully prepared to take on another onslaught of Iranian missiles and drones. Joyce, it was Israel, according to reports, that a couple of weeks ago during the height of deadly and brutal crackdown on protesters in Tehran and around the country, largely that the United States held off. Donald Trump was saber-rattling against Tehran, and the reporting was that Israel asked the United States, and European countries too, asked the United States to back off for the moment because of an apparent lack of preparedness, maybe in Israel or maybe American assets as well.

55:10Is that what happened? Does Israel have a preparedness issue here? Well, that's one version that came out that the Israelis don't think there is enough U.S. equipment, military equipment, aircraft carriers, destroyers in the region to fend them off in case of a joint attack. Since then, what we're reporting today actually is the Israelis have upped intelligence sharing with Americans in anticipation of strikes that come within weeks. So they're not at the preparedness level they like to be, but they see this as a gradual escalation ladder that they could get there in a matter of weeks. And I mean, Todd, we've discussed on this program a lot.

55:58There is, it's Netanyahu's dream to see, you know, the Iranian regime go down. There is definitely a big appetite on Israel to see the U.S. go after the leaders in Tehran, whether it's Khamenei, whether it's the IRGC, because this is their arc enemy in the region. Well, let's not forget the crackdown internally in Iran. Again, the president did not mention it in this latest round of social media posting and threats against Iran. But protests, of course, broke out just a couple of weeks ago. President Trump spoke directly in a social media post on January 13th back then when he promised protesters that help is on the way.

56:44And he said they should keep protesting. Take over your institutions. Since then, Nancy Youssef, we've gotten lots of conflicting reports and understandably so. There's an Internet blackout. Iran about just how many Iranians may have been killed by their own government in the streets. What do we know now about the toll of that crackdown on protests and who may have been killed? You're right, that blackout for weeks. And so we're just starting to see the trickling of videos and pictures and they're horrifying because they really show a very aggressive and violent crackdown on those protesters. The Iranian government's figures at 3 ,100, and it's assumed that that is a low estimate.

57:30Various human groups have put deaths as high as 16 ,000. We've heard even references higher to that. But we're not just seeing the number, but we're really seeing through these images and videos the degree of the crackdown, that there was an aggressive push by the Iranian security forces to go after protesters. And so while they didn't execute the prisoners that they detained, as Trump had demanded at the first sort of confrontation between these two countries, the Iranian government clearly very aggressively went after protesters to put down this crackdown. We're going to keep watching Iran, not only the fate of protesters, but the escalation as the United States, again, parks multiple assets, destroyers, aircraft carrier groups, naval assets in the Persian Gulf and in the Indian Ocean in a stepped up escalation strategy, as Joyce Karam says, against Iran.

58:37And we will be following that story. All right. We have to talk about Venezuela, of course. There's a lot more in the news as we travel around the world here on the Roundup as we do every week. We noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. This is nearly four weeks after the United States invaded Caracas and seized Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro. And on the Hill, things got heated. Finally, a public hearing. Wow. How novel. Finally, a public hearing in the Senator House. This is the first public hearing we've had. 200 folks who were on secret designated combatant lists have been killed.

59:18U.S. troops have been injured. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent. An armada amassed. The announcement of a new Monroe Doctrine, which does not land well in the Americas, Democrats have been asking over and over again, can we have a public hearing? That was Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, but Secretary Marco Rubio attempted to reassure lawmakers that the United States is making progress in Venezuela and around the world. Greg Myrie, the takeover of Venezuela did not get congressional approval. I mean, I know that's what's under Tim Kaine's skin there. That's the nexus of his anger that you hear there.

59:56What did Marco Rubio have to say about the decision to bypass Congress, capture Maduro, and then set up an oil for cash scheme of Venezuela's resources? Right. So he basically laid out what has become the norm now. If the U.S. is conducting a relatively – what's believed to be a relatively short operation, it can do it without congressional approval. And then you get into all sorts of these legalisms and within 60 days, Congress needs to be notified and act on it to approve an extended military operation. But Rubio and others have talked about an imminent threat. Now, we could certainly have a debate here about how imminent was any threat from Venezuela, but that was sort of Rubio's argument.

1:00:43But is he making that argument just because the law says he has to some technicality of a statute, or does he mean it? I mean, how is he justifying imminent threat? Right. Again, I'm not sure that that's a case that they've made very strongly other than the fact that they made it clear that they're going to have increased emphasis on the Americas. Marco Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, has really stressed this Donro doctrine, the updating of the Monroe doctrine. And that really seems to be the focus. And this is what this administration wants to push in Venezuela and perhaps elsewhere. Well, another key moment in that hearing, the question of further use of force in Venezuela.

1:01:28Here's Marco Rubio. The president never rules out his options as commander in chief to protect the national interest of the United States. I can tell you right now with full certainty, we are not postured to, nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time. The only military presence you'll see in Venezuela is our Marine guards at an embassy. Okay. That is our goal. That is our expectation. And that is what everything that outlines towards. But if that said, if an Iranian drone factory pops up and threatens our forces in the region, the president retains the option to eliminate that threat.

1:02:00Now, also before Secretary Rubio on Wednesday, the Trump administration's decision, as I just mentioned, to sell off oil reserves belonging to Venezuela for hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump confirmed some oil was already being sent to refineries in Houston, telling The New York Post. And here's a quote. Let's put it this way. they don't have any oil, we take the oil. Nancy Youssef, you had some in-depth reporting on these oil sales. What did you find? So we wanted to look at the Venezuelan people's relationship with oil. And what we found is going all the way back to the 1920s, it's really quite complicated that oil sales for them has been both an engine for their economic prosperity at times, and also a tool for their political oppression.

1:02:46And so we were really fascinated by the dynamics of that relationship. And why it's relevant now is we're hearing a lot from Venezuelans that while some think of the oil as their sort of national treasure, they are willing to make deals if it leads to economic prosperity because of that relationship that they've had with oil. And so we're seeing that play out just this week. we saw in Venezuela legislation that sort of removed some of the restrictions around sales that it's clear that this government is interested in making sales that are quite favorable to the United States. But having said all that, I think it's with the expectation that this leads to some sort of economic prosperity for the Venezuelan people.

1:03:32And that is the hope that comes out with it, but it is not as tethered to keeping oil in Venezuelan hands and in Venezuelan businesses because for the Venezuelan people in our reporting, they don't think of it as necessarily something that guarantees freedom for them. Under the Maduro, or excuse me, under Hugo Chavez in particular, it was the most effective tool in sort of holding them down both politically and economically. Well, what about the money, Nancy? What about this account in Qatar that Donald Trump is reportedly using, parking Venezuela's oil money there and then dispersing as he sees fit?

1:04:15What did Marco Rubio have to say to senators about this offshore account, not under control of the U.S. Congress and not parked in the United States Treasury? Yes. So you heard the president in the early days after Maduro was captured saying that there's about$300 to$500 million worth of oil. And that was oil essentially already extracted. And they started to sort of move that oil, as you mentioned, to Houston. The Secretary of State described a quote unquote novel approach to dealing with that money, in which case they have basically taken funds from that and have it managed through Qatar to funnel those proceeds back to Venezuela under oversight with Qatar sort of acting as a neutral host for those funds.

1:05:02Oversight from whom? You said oversight from whom? Well, that the United States would sort of have some oversight over it in terms of how the money is spent and making sure that it's being used for the benefit of Venezuelan infrastructure and people. And so remember, Qatar has before and after this had an interest in being a facilitator in this conflict. And so they've sort of treated Qatar as sort of the middle ground to hold those funds as they figure out how to do it. He talked about the Venezuelans presenting a monthly budget, but it really sort of showed how much the United States is pulling the levers financially over what happens with these oil sales and its monitoring of the Venezuelan government and its handling of those funds.

1:05:48Joyce Karam, I have to ask, I mean, the president has accepted a$400 million jet from Qatar. The president is now suing the IRS of his own government for, I can't remember the figure, but it's many billions of dollars that he would pay himself. The list goes on. The New York Times reports that the president has made$1.4 billion. That's the lowball during his presidency. How do we know that some of this money in the account in Qatar outside of Congress's purview won't wind up in the president's pocket? We won't. We won't know. So the Qataris have every interest to keep the administration happy, to keep President Trump happy.

1:06:27We saw when he visited, you know, a huge reception with a red carpet. They've gone out of their way to keep, you know, the Trump administration happy on the Board of Peace. And everything they're doing, they're just their audience. It's an audience of one. So until you see Congress asking questions, until we see investigations into, you know, money, not just from Qatar, I have to say, you know, the other Gulf countries coming in, we just simply won't know. All right, let's move to Ukraine and to Russia, another spot where we find ourselves here on the Roundup nearly every week, and rightfully so.

1:07:08Alarming new casualty figures out this week. United States and British officials say almost 1.8 million soldiers are killed, wounded, or missing nearly four years after Russia's invasion and the ensuing war. President Trump broke down the numbers even more starkly, saying 26 ,000 troops are dying in Ukraine every week. On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine exchanged dead soldiers held in refrigerated trucks. Russia returned 1 ,000, remains Ukraine returned 38. Greg Myrie, you spent a lot of time reporting in Ukraine. How are these losses felt four years after the full-scale invasion of February 2022?

1:07:48Yeah, they're felt in every part of the country. You will be going places and you'll see funerals just happening. You'll see more women out and about and fewer men. And it's been very hard to get numbers throughout this war. Neither side has divulged the exact figures. But these figures, there may be some element of estimates in here, but it does give you the sense. We're talking about 1.2 million Russians who've been killed or wounded, 600 ,000 Ukrainians who've been killed or wounded. An extraordinary toll in just four years. Puts it into perspective, too, when you look at other conflicts around the world.

1:08:31I mean, just the numbers are just devastating. Staggering, absolutely. Well, on Tuesday, a Russian drone hit a passenger train in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, killing five people. One man escaped onto snow-covered tracks along with a woman and a baby and called for help.

1:08:55President Zelensky in Ukraine responded on X. In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be regarded in the same way purely as an act of terrorism. Now, Ukrainian troops say they're causing damage in Russia with drone attacks of their own. Their soldiers spoke to France 24. These are Ukrainian looting drones, probably one of the most effective unmanned aircraft existing in the world today. Their range is up to 1 ,500 kilometers. And those soldiers described their handwritten messages.

1:09:35May they burn in hell. That's the main thing we write every time.

1:09:42Nancy Youssef, earlier this month, President Trump told The New York Times that the only limit on his powers is, quote, my own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. How do we see that operating in Ukraine now? And we're going to talk more about the president's approach and mentality after a break here. I think he sees himself as the key broker to Ukraine, that he believes that he can convince Putin to reach deals, that he can set the terms telling the Ukrainians that they might have to give up territory. But I think in practice what we've seen is that he hasn't been able to break that logjam and that while there have been multiple negotiations, these are two parties that are not willing to capitulate to sort of the deal as he sees it.

1:10:33And it's why the war continues to go on and why resolving these key issues on things like Donetsk and the power plant and who controls it has been so difficult to achieve. All right, gang. Well, we've talked about Iran. We've talked about Ukraine. We've talked about Venezuela. Not so much China today. I have a feeling they might come up in the next few minutes here. In the time we have left, I just want us to step back a little bit. The balance of power, as we mentioned at the top of the show, that shaped the world for 80 years is changing. There's no doubt about it. A lot of people think Donald Trump is trying to break the world.

1:11:06He doesn't think so. last April in a phone call with Atlantic staff writer Michael Scherer, Donald Trump said he's trying to rescue it. The first time I had two things to do, run the country and survive. I had all these crooked guys, you know? And the second time I run the country and the world, because, you know, it's the world I'm trying to save. It's the world I'm trying to save. Now, to that end, earlier this month, Trump told the New York Times, and I just mentioned this before, I want to apply it to the whole world now. Trump told the New York Times that the only limit on his power is, quote, my own morality, my own mind, it's the only thing that can stop me.

1:11:42So I want to pose this to all of you. For the last 80 years, we've had superpowers. We've had the UN Security Council, alliances that projected US power, and at least sometimes, sometimes, stability, not in the aughts, but overall, sure, stability at times. Trump's trying hard to shake that paradigm, antagonizing European allies, a close affinity for dictators and strongmen, a new American imperialism in Venezuela and Greenland and possibly beyond. Nancy Youssef, Donald Trump says he's the one who can save the world. What does the world say? Start anywhere you like with this question. Well, yeah, I'm happy to do that.

1:12:25I want to start, though, what we've seen, though, from his sort of foreign policies so far. I think if you were to summarize it, I think it's power-based, it's hemispheric, it's transactional, and it's really focused on U.S. economic interest. So the world is seeing that and asking how does it respond because it doesn't have the same guarantees of alliances that the U.S. has projected previously. And the president has made reference to this multiple times. I think this was shown in the most pronounced way a couple weeks ago when we saw the threats on potentially taking Greenland from a NATO ally.

1:13:00The most notable response we've heard was from the Prime Minister of Canada in his speech at Davos, in which he really urged middle powers to come together and sort of create their own alternative system that was not as dependent on, I think, what he would sort of consider predatory great powers, the U.S. and China. Well, let's, actually, Nancy, let's hear from Mark Carney right now on that very issue. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window. We know the old order is not coming back.

1:13:39We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers. Nancy, this is the task of the middle powers. He says we've taken the sign out of the window. This is our choice. That's right. So I'll start broadly and I'll leave it to Greg and Joyce to finesse it as I know they will. Economically, there are deals that we're starting to see happen between, for example, India and the EU. We've seen various European leaders visiting China in the past month and more so anticipated to do so in the coming weeks.

1:14:23So there are efforts at economic engagement. Moreover, we're seeing these middle powers invest more in their defense. The challenge in the short term, I think, is I don't think you can completely cut off the U.S. or China economically or in terms of security. So what does that look like? When are you cooperating with the U.S. and China? When are you not? And that's the part that I think you're seeing middle powers really wrestling with right now, the balance in that relationship. between diversifying who they're investing and working with while acknowledging and recognizing that it can't be done by siphoning off the U.S.

1:15:03and China, at least not now. Joyce, what's your view on this question, the middle powers, the reordering of world power, and America's new doctrine? I mean, what we're seeing is peak disruptive Trump. You know, it's either my way or the highway, but, you know, there's a way in the middle. And as Nancy mentioned, the successive visits we've seen from European and Western leaders to China are not a coincidence. I mean, we've seen Emmanuel Macron. We've seen now the British prime minister is there. We've seen Carney go to China. All of a sudden, China at Davos is the defender of multilateral approaches and is the defender of free trade.

1:15:48You're seeing a massive, massive trade deal, free trade deal between India and the European Union. That free trade agreement should have been between India and the United States, but Trump and Modi couldn't make it happen. So, you know, U.S. allies are not waiting. It's almost Trump is driving Europe into Asia and, you know, India's arms. So this is a shift, as Carney mentioned, that a ship that has sailed and there is no going back to the old order. I would say in the Middle East, Todd, it's not, I mean, Trump gets credit, for example, on the Gaza ceasefire. We've seen this week the return of the remains of the last hostage.

1:16:37So that's great. But you're seeing middle powers also, you know, rise to the occasion and do their own thing. You're seeing proxy war in Sudan, proxy war in Yemen, and the U.S. is very much absent on the diplomatic track on these conflicts. Greg Meirich. Yeah, the one thing I'll add is we're seeing Trump be much more aggressive around the world. He is tearing down the old order. You framed it very well at the top of the show. But he is, in effect, kind of beating up on much smaller, weaker places, whether it's Venezuela or Greenland or Gaza or Iran. On the big questions, how is he dealing with China or Russia?

1:17:17He hasn't been able to sort of throw the U.S. weight around and get an agreement with U.S. and China. They're kind of at a truce on the trade war with Russia. He touts his good relationship with Vladimir Putin, but it hasn't led to any agreement. So where Trump has had just overwhelming power leverage, he's using that in a very aggressive way. But I think on some of the bigger questions, it hasn't delivered so far. Nancy, what about the post-Trump years? And I mean the immediate ones. Three more years left in this presidency. Despite what he says, he won't be president after 2028. Yes, I said it.

1:17:58He won't be. The next president, whoever they are, let's pretend it's a Democratic president, will probably be much more amenable to NATO, much more attached to the current world arrangement, the current recipe for stability. How are Europeans and countries around the world viewing this dynamic? They're stuck, if I can use that phrase, with Trump now, but it's not forever. Is it that they know they can't sort of trust the United States to be consistent now? I think that is essentially what they're saying. To your question, I personally think that we're not going to see the immediate effects of these kinds of shifts in the short term.

1:18:36The next president, I think, will see them because these are major transformations that are happening. You're seeing, for example, European nations now commit to 5 % of their GDP on defense spending after spending decades, depending on the U.S., to sort of lead their defenses. You're seeing these deals start to come into fruition and being finalized. So the question for the next president is, if a new world order emerges in which the United States has a much different role, How does then the United States adjust to that? And I think that's going to be the challenge for the next administration.

1:19:12And what are the long-term implications for U.S. economic security, its military dominance, as these new deals start to come together in that post-Trump period? Nancy, how does Trump's Board of Peace fit in to all this? I mean, originally conceived to enlist international help with the 20-point plan for peace and reconstruction in Gaza, It's morphed into something quite different. You can pay a billion dollars to be an elite Gold Circle member. You can join for free but only for a three-year stint. I don't know how real or how effectual or what the Board of Peace is actually doing now. How does it fit into this discussion about how Donald Trump runs things for the next three years?

1:19:57I think it really typifies how he thinks about his place in resolving these conflicts because the Board of Peace and its bylaws, which were published, doesn't mention Gaza and, in fact, talks about sort of broad aims. But it does make him the sort of central authority in this. And some would see this as challenging traditional institutions that we have stood up and supported, like the United Nations, a sort of alternative approach. And so that plus the demand that there be funding towards this, I think, creates this alternative sort of system in which it is very focused on Trump being at the center of this international peace architecture.

1:20:41a board of peace that, while ostensibly for Gaza, really goes beyond that, and really recasting leadership, global leadership roles and how we think about it with all the sort of a hodgepodge of members in this board of peace. And so I think if you think about it, that is how Trump is thinking about foreign policy, not with traditional institutions, but ones that he's created on his terms in which he plays a central role. Joyce, how are leaders around the world? You can focus on the Middle East, if you like, viewing the Board of Peace proposition. They figured out that a$400 million jet or a gold statue or an award from FIFA or some other organization is a great way to get Donald Trump happy with you, a great way to get him to do what you want.

1:21:28For the price of a billion dollars, you can be an elite permanent member of the Board of Peace. Have they figured out that for the low, low price of a billion dollars, you can put Donald Trump in a good mood? So for the Europeans, the major powers or those who sit on the UN Security Council, there hasn't been much interest in Trump's Board of Peace. But when you look at the Middle East, exactly what you're mentioning, these countries that have carried favor by, you know, playing to Trump's ego, by paying, investing in his companies and all of that, they have joined the Board of Peace. 40 % of the membership are Middle Eastern countries.

1:22:08The interesting part here is this is something that's expected to lead the change, the peace in Gaza, but there are no Palestinians that sit on it. There is, it bypasses the United Nations. It's very much, as you mentioned, a pay-by-play mechanism. You pay the billion dollar, you get a permanent seat. So in the short term, this will be, you know, a vehicle to push Trump agenda. In the medium term, it's unclear. I mean, what's going to happen in 2028? Do we see China being more forceful at the United Nations with Trump, you know, creating an alternative or a rival, not alternative mechanism? Well, while we talk about transactionalism and the new American imperialism, of course, we're about to talk about Greenland.

1:23:01Several European leaders attended a forum in Paris to short support from allies and portray a united front in response to Donald Trump. European leaders are still reeling from Davos, where Trump said he had a framework deal for the future of Greenland. Of course, the president didn't give any actual detail or facts about that. Here's French President Emmanuel Macron at the end of that summit. Events show that events in Greenland are a strategic wake-up call for the whole of Europe on reaffirming our European security, on combating global warming, foreign interventions, and on reducing strategic dependence.

1:23:47We got this question from Donald who says, did Trump's attempt to acquire Greenland voluntarily or otherwise create a permanent rift with NATO? Is there any serious attempt for Europe and Canada to create a joint defense without the United States? How would the U.S. defense posture improve if we gain Greenland but lost the NATO alliance? There's a lot of questions there, but Greg Meirey, what about Canada, Europe, other NATO allies realizing, as Mark Carney said, if Canada were taking the sign out of the window, he wasn't talking about NATO directly, but there are implications here. Are they starting to think about their own defense?

1:24:23Oh, yeah. We've seen this in a lot of ways. One interesting report, the Germans are – German companies expected to make more artillery shells than this year than the entire U.S. capacity. So Europeans are thinking about this. They are trying to do stuff. Are they ready to sort of become NATO without the U.S.? No, they're not there. What does the transition look like as NATO watches war on its eastern front? Well, we don't know, but I think Ukraine will be a huge test to see how much the Europeans can fill in the end of U.S. assistance to Ukraine. We have to leave it there, but I want to thank my panelists for today.

1:25:03Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic, covering national security and the Defense Department. Greg Myrie, national security correspondent with NPR, the focus on the intelligence community. And Joyce Karam, the new editor-in-chief at All Monitor. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer with help this week from Kellen Quigley. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. And Alexandra Botee is our senior supervising producer. Eileen Humphries is the editor and producer of 1A On Demand, and Barb Anguiano produces our podcast. And special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional podcast and On Demand support this week.

1:25:40This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. Have a great weekend. This is 1A.

1:25:58Thank you.