The News Roundup For January 9, 2026

27:13And I don't think that reflects the clampdown that they've tried to institute on reporters in the building. Right. Amanda, given that so much access has been restricted since reporters decided not to comply with the new Trump administration rules, how has reporting been out of the Pentagon this week since this operation began? I think if you if you look back at kind of all the big stories that have come out of the Pentagon, not just during this administration, but in past administrations, I don't think it's unusual for the stories to come from often the people who are not at the Pentagon day to day.

27:43The importance of being at the Pentagon is to, of course, have access to officials at the Pentagon so they can comment on things and you can discuss things. And that's kind of the background talk that is missed when you're not allowed to be in the building. It's much like the White House. You know, a lot of great White House stories come from people who aren't even based in Washington because it's often easier to work from the outside in when you're trying to break a big story. But in terms of engaging with the administration on key issues, that's what's really lost when you aren't allowed in the building.

28:14One last media story for you. Meanwhile, newly appointed CBS Evening News anchor Tony Ducupol is facing a backlash after ending a newscast on Tuesday with a piece about Marco Rubio. It started off ticking Rubio's many roles in the government. He is now the face of U.S. foreign policy and President Trump's point man on Venezuela, All in addition to his roles as secretary of state, interim national security advisor and acting national archivist and USAID chief. And it ended with this. Marco Rubio, we salute you. You're the ultimate Florida man. Amanda, how does this salute to a sitting cabinet secretary and political appointee fit into what we've seen from CBS News in the weeks since the network installed Barry Weiss as editor in chief?

29:01It does seem to fit in with their their plan. Now, it remains to be seen how this plan is going to go over with the public, and that was certainly a very unusual sign-off for a journalist. I can't imagine doing that myself. Some of the words that have been used to describe that were fawning, unusual, goes full MAGA, jarring. So it was a rocky first week for this released broadcast, this newly revamped under Barry Weiss at CBS. On Wednesday, GOP lawmakers from Minnesota testified at a hastily scheduled House Oversight Committee hearing about the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal allegations. Things got heated.

29:40This situation should be an opportunity to take a deep look at the programs and improve their oversight abilities, not an excuse to cut them entirely. If we care about the most vulnerable, if we care about the most marginalized, this is an opportunity to do so. Ms. Lee, the IGs are hired to identify fraud. They haven't identified fraud. The IGs have failed. But anyway. You all have failed. You all continue to fail. We've done nothing. You have to gavel, Mr. Comer. We barely do hearings on anything that actually affects change. You have power here, and yet you don't do anything. That was Democratic Congresswoman Summer Lee from Pennsylvania and Republican Congressman James Comer of Kentucky.

30:22The prosecutors are alleging that various groups in Minnesota that claim to provide meal assistance to children in need actually stole as much as$9 billion from the state. Catherine, many people outside of Minneapolis may have missed this story, especially because of the holidays as it's unfolded over the past few weeks. What else do we need to know about this? Yes, I mean, this is an ongoing story. Obviously, the shootings this week has really fanned the flames in a city that's already, I think, under a lot of stress. As we discussed earlier in the show, there are a series of fraud claims that have been going on for some time focused on nonprofits serving the city's Somali community.

31:03President Trump has particularly focused on these fraud claims and has also accused the governor, Tim Walz, who is a Democrat, of mishandling government funding. This particularly, I think, caught his interest after a viral video that purported to reveal fraud in daycare centers. So this has gotten a lot of attention from the administration. We saw yesterday at the White House, the vice president announced a new assistant attorney general position to lead fraud investigations. And this comes as more broadly the White House is now trying to highlight social services fraud in Democrat-run states.

31:45Tim Walz and his team are arguing that the White House is overly politicizing this instead of working to address concerns. But obviously, this has become a very contentious situation. We did see this week Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz announcing he's dropping his reelection bid amid the fraud scandal. I got no election to look forward to. I've been in front of you. I'll call on who I want to call on, and I'll watch what the press gets written, and we'll make sure that in this state, there's full accountability for everybody because I, buck stops with me, I'm accountable for this. And because of that accountability, I'm not running for office again.

32:22Arthur, very different tone from what we heard from Minneapolis than versus this Washington hearing, it sounds like. Right, so starting, I think, in 2024, after the Minneapolis government notified the FBI of nonprofits just bilking this COVID relief enhanced nutrition program, There have been dozens of people charged with crime. So there's real well-documented and ongoing criminal cases related to that. And then this YouTube video came out over the holiday break where this guy goes to daycare centers and is, like, banging on the door saying, show me the children. And, you know, they don't show him the children.

33:00So he says, there's no children at these daycares. It's all a fraud. And now it's like a meme with other YouTubers trying to cash in on this same exciting video phenomenon that gets millions of views. And that is actually what has really supercharged, sent ICE into Minneapolis, got the Trump administration shutting down social services block grants from the federal government to five other Democratic states. Right. So it's$10 billion in not just Minnesota, but New York, California, Illinois, and Colorado. Right. With no justification other than that, we saw fraud in Minneapolis. And in their letters, they say, because of these allegations, we are concerned that you might be doing fraud, too.

33:44There's nothing there. They're just doing it. It's a purely vindictive and political attack on these other states. It might get stopped in court. I think that's a strong chance there. We did get an email from Heather asking, how is it legal for the federal government to target particular states and deny public aid benefits which are based on need? How did the executive branch decide on those five states? What criteria would allow that? I am at a loss to understand how this is legal. Amanda, I wonder if you can address Heather's question and also just talk about what the implications of this will be for these states we've just talked about.

34:21Yeah. So the attorney generals of these five states don't think it's legal. And they sued this week over this. And while the administration has not laid out its case for why they went after these five states specifically, they are, of course, all very populous states led by Democratic governors. You know, we've seen President Trump spar with Gavin Newsom in California, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois. You know, New York is on that list. And so, you know, it's not at all surprising that they would choose to go after these states in a political context. Now, this is going to have potentially very, you know, dramatic ramifications for families in these states who are relying on child care centers.

35:09even if you are not relying on these subsidies yourself the child care and daycare network in this country was already strained to the brink before COVID. COVID made it worse. A lot of them are struggling to keep their doors open as it is and so you know they're already saying people running daycares in some of these states that rely on some of these subsidies to smooth out their operating costs they're saying you know we could shut down and then it won't just be the people who are benefiting from these subsidies, it will be everyone who's relying on these child care centers. Yeah, we spoke at HuffPost, did a story, spoke to some child care provider, you know, daycare organizations in Minneapolis that said, we already are reusing our paper towel rules for art projects.

35:50So you take away the federal portion of our funding, and then we're going to have to start laying people off, denying daycare spots to children. So it's going to have a major impact. Also from the Department of Health and Human Services this week, Secretary Kennedy and Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins announced updates to federal dietary guidelines. Kennedy highlighted recommendations that the people in the U.S. eat fewer highly processed foods and foods with high added sugar. Another recommendation this week drew much more negative criticism. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an updated and shorter list of vaccines.

36:28It recommends for all newborns and young children. Its vaccine schedule now recommends 11 vaccines for all children down from 18 and adds new categories for which children should get more vaccines. Arthur, why did the CDC say it was reducing the number of recommended universal vaccines? One of the explanations from RFK was that we're harmonizing our recommendations with what's done in other countries, which is just contrary to America First. Really, Obviously, he's just doing his anti-vaccine thing. It's not about science. It's not about other countries. It's about RFK thinking you shouldn't give your kids shots and that you should, like, eat a steak with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

37:10One more note about a preventable disease that's top of mind right now. We're nearing the worst of the annual flu season. This year's numbers of flu cases and doctor's offices have reached nearly a 30-year high. 8 % of all doctor's visits at the end of December were for flu-like illnesses. At least 5 ,000 people have died from flu-related illnesses this season, including nine children. Let's go to Wyoming, where the state's Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Wyoming's near-total abortion ban and its prohibition on abortion pills violating the state constitution. Amanda, what's the immediate effect of this court ruling for people in Wyoming?

37:49So the immediate impact will be that abortion remains legal because these laws were on hold after a lower court ruling. This was the country's first explicit ban on medication abortion. So this was kind of a first test of banning that explicitly. This was a 4-1 ruling from the justices. And it's worth pointing out, you know, Wyoming is a politically conservative state. All of these judges were appointed by Republican governors. And what they cited in deciding this case was a state constitutional amendment that Wyoming approved in 2012 that was related to the Affordable Care Act. Now, if you remember back to the Affordable Care Act debate, one of the huge political sticking points were the so-called death panels, right?

38:32So they passed a constitutional amendment in Wyoming that ensured, quote, competent adults had the right to make their own health care decisions. And that has now been applied to abortion access and medication abortion in Wyoming. We've got a few listener questions I want to get to at the end of the hour. Let me start, Catherine, with this one for you, if you don't mind starting with this. Why is there no serious attempt that is being publicized to impeach President Trump and most of his administration? We hear it all over social media that there are documents being filed addressing impeachment.

39:04What are the chances that it will actually happen? Well, I think the most obvious thing going on in Washington right now is that Republicans control the House and the Senate, right? They have complete control of all branches of government. So no one in leadership in Congress is looking to do this. President Trump has been very vocal about the fact that he thinks that if Republicans lose control of Congress, that he could get impeached. And so that is one of the things he's been trying to tell. He's been saying this privately and publicly for a long time as he tries to push for Republicans to win in the midterms.

39:42So, I mean, I think that's, you know, looking ahead, a thing that certainly Republicans are worried about if they lose. And there are impeachment resolutions against Trump in the House from Democrats, but, you know, they're just getting blocked. And the leadership doesn't think you can just do it. They don't want to snap impeachment. They want it to be a big process where they have a lengthy report that lays out all the crimes they believe he's committed. Let me put this one to Arthur and Amanda. This is from Sharon, who says, I am curious how much repairing the capital cost after January 6th.

40:13I am curious how much the whole Venezuela debacle has cost the American taxpayer. I think whenever you report on controversial actions of the government, please report on how much it is costing us and compare it to how much the health care subsidies and child care subsidies would cost. Also, please compare it to how much was cut from Medicare and Medicaid in the big, horrible tax bill from last year. I think cost numbers should be a thing in all reporting. Arthur, you're dying to answer this. Amanda, you can weigh in after. Damage to capital,$3 million or so. Venezuela operations certainly in the billions.

40:48Cuts to Medicaid around$100 billion over 10 years. What did I miss? Amanda, you want to weigh in on how much child care subsidies would cost, health care subsidies? The child care was$10 billion to five states. And I actually, I don't know what the cost of Venezuela will be. I think it's probably too early to know that. But again, the president is also saying we're taking their oil so I could see, you know, them saying this would pay for itself at the end of the day. But, you know, that's a really good point from the person who asked the question is that, you know, all of these things should be balanced against one another and weighed against one another.

41:30And that's a really useful detail to include in reporting. Well, thanks to all of you for writing in. And thanks, as always, to our expert guests, Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for The 19th, Catherine Lucey, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, and Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPost. Let's head to a quick break here. We'll be back with more of the News Roundup in just a moment. Stay with us.

41:59All right, let's turn now to the global edition of the News Roundup. Here to provide analysis on the week's top stories, Elizabeth Hagedorn is a diplomatic correspondent for El Monitor. Hi, Elizabeth. Good to be here. Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and the Defense Department. It's always great to have you, Nancy. Always great to be here. Thank you. And Jack Dutch is also with us, defense reporter at Politico. Hi, Jack. Hi, Nyla. It's been nearly a week since Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores were captured by U.S. forces and brought to face charges of narco-terrorism on American soil.

42:31Nancy, a week later, what aspect of this story are you following most closely? I think more than anything, what does governance look like in Venezuela after the fall of the Maduro regime? I think we started the week feeling like because the vice president, the minister of interior, the minister of defense, the head of the National Assembly were still in place, that the government was being replaced in its leadership but not really in sort of its function. And I think over the course of the week, we've seen a situation that's a little bit more complicated. And so the question in my mind becomes, is Delce Rodriguez controlling Trump?

43:07Is Trump controlling Delce Rodriguez? What is sort of the balance there? And I'll give you an example of where that sort of evolution emerged this week. We saw the release of political prisoners a few days ago from Venezuela. And on one hand, that was very promising because that's a very demonstrative display of a move towards something away from the Maduro regime. However, there were only eight of at least 800 political prisoners released. Are we going to see more this week? If we don't, that tells us something. And if we do, that tells us something. And so I think we're in a period of really watching this transition and what kind of government emerges from this and how much of it looks familiar to those who lived under the Maduro regime and how much of it looks like it's evolving into something new.

43:53The political void left by Nicolas Maduro has been filled by the former vice president, Delce Rodriguez, who was sworn in as interim president on January 5th. Rodriguez declared a 90-day state of emergency that gives the security forces broad power to, quote, immediately search and capture anyone who supports the, quote, armed attack by the United States, along with other measures that would further erode civil liberties in a nation long under authoritarian rule. This journalist in Caracas, who only wanted to be identified as Alberto, spoke to our colleagues at NPR's Morning Edition on Wednesday.

44:28Here's a little bit of what he said. By the time Delce Rodriguez, the current president, the interim president, was appointed, we're all surprised because it only means that the only thing that changed was the president, but the system is still in place, right? We even had an interview with a person who said, like, of all the crazy people that we have here in Venezuela, you took the most powerless person in Venezuela. You left us with Diosdado, with Delce, with Jorge Rodriguez, with the Ministry of the Military of Justice, right? So in practical terms, the situation in Venezuela, it's pretty much the same.

45:11Jack, so as we're hearing that, and we know that Maduro's government was notorious for a culture of repression and violence without impunity, what are we hearing from the U.S. about who is in charge of Venezuela now and how the Trump administration will work with Delce Rodriguez? Well, it seems to be a case of me, the new boss, same as the old boss, like Nancy kind of laid out. You still have Delce Rodriguez in place. She's Maduro's vice president with Maduro's ideology, performing Maduro's crackdowns on free speech and still jailing most of the political prisoners that were there. It seems like Trump is fairly happy with the way that things have gone so far.

45:46He's called off a potential second wave of strikes against Venezuela that they were raring to go after that first wave, of course, that we saw earlier this week. So it seems like there's there's a happiness, but also this could change very, very rapidly. Right. We see that Trump has already invited Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Karina Machado to the White House next week and says he plans to accept her Nobel Peace Prize. Will that change the situation? Because that's one of the things that Trump really wants. In a long-ranging interview with The New York Times this week, the president said U.S.

46:19oversight in Venezuela could last for years. But in a rare rebuke, the Senate voted in favor of blocking further action in Venezuela. In the immediate aftermath of Maduro's captures, we've seen leaders around the world responding with a mix of condemnation and support. Elizabeth, now that we're a weekend, can you give us a sense of how this is being viewed by global leaders? As you said, there's been a range of reactions. In Latin America, there was mostly condemnation, as you might expect, with the exception of Trump's regional allies like President Malay of Argentina, El Salvador's Bukele, Ecuador's Noboa, all of whom voiced support for this operation.

46:57Whereas in Europe, the responses have been muted. You have leaders calling for de-escalation but refraining from direct criticism of Trump, likely for fear of antagonizing him. There are a few notable exceptions, one being Spain, which issued condemnation. Also, France. Its representative said during an emergency UN meeting this week that the Operation Venezuela chips away at the very foundation of international order. So very strong words there from a close U.S. ally. Elizabeth, as we've often discussed on the Roundup, is there anything the UN can really do here? Can you tell us what they did this week?

47:31Well, you know, as demonstrated in Gaza over the past two years, the United Nations is fairly powerless in a situation like this. It has limited ability to directly intervene, in part due to the structure of the Security Council, with the United States holding veto power were the council to vote on any possible sanctions or peacekeeping force. You'd have similar enforcement issues with courts like the International Criminal Court, of which the U.S. is not a member. The U.N.'s main response so far has been to provide diplomatic pressure. The U.N. Secretary General Guterres raised concerns Monday about how this could cause greater instability in Venezuela and could set a dangerous precedent.

48:14And then there's also the Venezuelan oil. Here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. We are in the midst right now and, in fact, about to execute on a deal to take all the oil. They have oil that is stuck in Venezuela. They can't move it because of our quarantine and because it's sanctioned. We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. We're going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting. That money will then be handled in such a way that we will control how it is dispersed in a way that benefits the Venezuelan people, not corruption, not the regime.

48:44So we have a lot of leverage to move on the stabilization front. This move by the U.S. government is unprecedented. In recent history, an oil for food program once oversaw the use of funds from Iraqi oil sales, but that was managed by the U.N. On Friday, top executives from the three biggest American oil companies, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips are scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House. Nancy, there's a lot still up in the air about what has or has not been agreed between the Trump administration and oil companies. But from what we do know, how realistic are the president's plans here?

49:19So what I heard Rubio saying is that we are offering Venezuela the opportunity to be brought into the international community that will be their Sherpa into this after. isolating them for so many years. But he didn't offer a timeline or specifics in terms of how that would happen, and there are a number of factors that I think one has to consider. Number one is governance, that you can't have good business in Venezuela without good governance, and those details of the government haven't been worked out. How does an oil company invest the millions, if not billions, needed to build the infrastructure to extract oil?

49:54How does it bring in personnel? How does it secure its infrastructure if it doesn't have confidence in good governance? Also, right now, there's a glut of oil in the global economy. And so is there a willingness to take that risk right now with so many questions outstanding? And finally, I would note that there's a real move towards electric vehicles and electric technology. And so are companies looking to make that kind of investment now as we're starting to see a shift from that kind of demand, at least moving towards long term? And so while the secretary of state was very ambitious in sort of spelling out what production could look like, until the deals around security and governance are worked out, it's hard to see how these companies have the incentive to make the kinds of investment needed to really turn what he described into reality.

50:52Jack, can I just ask you, we just were talking about Secretary of State Rubio. If he has struck a different tone than President Trump this week in describing Venezuela, where do we think that relationship lies between the Secretary of State and the president in terms of the very different things that sometimes it seems like they're saying? They are different things, but it certainly seems like Marco Rubio's mark has been on this operation, on sort of this regime change policy that they've enacted, at least a leadership change, if not a regime change, because it certainly seems like Delce Rodriguez is of Nicolas Maduro's ilk.

51:26So we see that representation there. Of course, different things are going to come out of Trump's mouth. And the key for him in Venezuela, as it is globally, has always been this resource extraction play for Donald Trump. However, I mean, we talked about this before the show. It doesn't look like Venezuelan oil is very good. There's already some consternation from U.S. crude oil and natural gas producers about this entering the marketplace. So there's going to be a lot to play for here in the economic agenda as well. Well, and certainly, Nancy, something else we were talking about before the broadcast started, how long an investment in infrastructure can take in terms of getting more oil out of Venezuela from a refinement standpoint.

52:10That's right. It's a years-long proposition. And, you know, we're in such a period of of uncertainty about governance, about oil. You know, we're talking about the restructuring of the country just a week after the fall of its leader. I think what people are looking for ultimately is the structure for moving forward. And while the Secretary of State laid out an ambitious sort of economic plan, until those sort of basic questions are ironed out, which could take months, it'll be hard to answer these broader questions about what investment in Venezuela looks like and to whose benefit. The U.S. capture of the Venezuelan president has opened a whole series of questions.

52:46What does this mean for the rest of Latin America? Trump spoke to the Colombian president on Wednesday, but will that call in future meeting take further action off the table? What will be the impact on the global energy markets? And perhaps most importantly, does the move mark a permanent shift in the U.S.'s projection of power? Stephen Miller, President Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor, said this to Jake Tapper on CNN this week. We're a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.

53:34Nancy, your colleagues at The Atlantic did a deep dive on Stephen Miller this week. But what does what he's saying there reflect on how the administration sees its role in the global order in foreign policy going forward? So I think up until this point, the international community thought of the United States as defenders of the rule-based order that we had benefited from from decades. And I think he's saying explicitly we're not going to be that anymore, that we're going to look out strictly for our interests. the way I think that played out in Venezuela is you didn't hear them talking about governance or democracy or human rights.

54:12The first message was we are going to benefit economically through oil. I was going back and looking at Donald Trump's comments about past wars in Libya and Iraq, and at first he used to say the U.S. shouldn't have intervened. And then he went on to say, well, they basically lacked imagination by not taking the oil. What they're signaling is that if there's an opportunity for us to take assets, we can take them. We have that ability. The other thing I hear them saying vis-a-vis the Western Hemisphere specifically is that if deals are struck in this hemisphere in which the United States is not the main beneficiary, that that's a problem for this administration.

54:50And specifically, if you start to see Chinese influence in this region, there was frustration about Argentinians buying soybeans from Chinese farmers versus American ones. There was frustration about a Chinese company at the Panama Canal. And now, potentially, China, up until the fall of the Maduro regime, getting oil from Venezuela. So I don't want to call it a policy because it feels like it's coming together in a very ad hoc way or it doesn't feel as doctrinal as the administration would have you say. But I do think those are some of the initial takeaways. Yeah, I mean, I think when you talk about this Trump doctrine, and I know news outlets love to play with it, it's kind of like a Rorsok test, right?

55:34He's not a hawk. He's not a dove. He's at the center of the inkblot. And he doesn't really fit on this traditional post-Vietnam scale of hawk and dove because he's looking at this 19th century style foreign policy where the rules of the game, the post-World War I, post-World War II rules haven't really been written yet. It's definitely personality based. That's what we saw in the New York Times interview. Trump said it was his own morality, his own mind, not international law that's governing his thinking. But this through line here is the resource seizure. You saw it with Syria's oil in the first term.

56:08Now you see it with Venezuela's oil, Ukraine's rare earths, the minerals in Greenland. But the problem is when it comes from a global standpoint, when you're looking at the consternation of U.S. allies, who's going to guarantee their security when everything's up for grabs, everything can be renegotiated, and the U.S. is pushing you to put pen to paper? I would just add that this Venezuela operation would seem to fly in the face of Trump's campaign promise of no new wars. I mean, an America first aversion to foreign entanglements is a core MAGA tenet. So there is a political risk for Trump here.

56:42His administration, you know, is mentioned as making the case that this is about enforcement of borders against drugs and migration. But, you know, as this drags on, I think we'll have to see if his MAGA supporters accept that distinction. In a post on Truth Social, the president said, quote,

57:11protests spurred by crippling economic conditions that began late last month have now swept across all of Iran's provinces and dramatically escalated in the last 24 hours. At least 50 protesters are believed to have died since December 28th. That's reporting from the AP. More than 2 ,270 have been detained. On Thursday, the country's Internet was shut down. But videos posted to social media show authorities firing bullets into crowds. Iranians are facing rampant inflation and a plummeting currency. The state media reports the government has begun paying 71 million citizens a new monthly allowance equivalent to$7 to ease the pain of the high cost of living.

57:54Elizabeth, you have been reporting on the angle of Tehran being one of Maduro's closest allies, maybe not in traditional terms like foreign policy, but more in the fact of having a common enemy of the United States. How has the regime in Iran watched the events in Venezuela over the past week? Well, we've seen, as you might expect, several condemnations from the Iranian government over the capture of Maduro. But of course, those statements need to be read in the context of these recent warnings from Trump that you mentioned, his pledge to intervene on the protesters if Iran starts shooting them.

58:30Now, it seems that apparent red line he set has been crossed. But I think whether he makes good on this threat or not, you have to imagine that rhetoric is rattling the country's leaders who fully expect that at some point this year there will be another attack by Israel, which has warned the United States that Iran is reconstituting its missile program. So the mood in Tehran right now is that it's only a matter of time before Israel attacks. And, you know, with these threats from Trump, possibly again with U.S. support. So the Supreme Leader no doubt worried over his safety. And all of this is happening while protesters in Iran go to the streets calling for a change in regime.

59:11Right. I wanted to ask what kind of domestic pressure is Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini under with all of these protests? I mean, certainly a lot of pressure, but it's worth remembering there have been several of these sort of protests in Iran in recent years. And it doesn't seem like these latest protests yet represent an existential threat to the regime's stability. The regime survived massive protests in 2022 and in 2019 before that. And that's in part because the IRGC and the broader Iranian security apparatus remain loyal and can effectively suppress the protests with violence.

59:47And we are starting to see that crackdown. Venezuela is also having ripple effects across Europe, specifically Greenland. The issue has gone from a diplomatic nuisance to a looming threat. Here's the president on Air Force One and Stephen Miller again from earlier this week with Jake Tapper on CNN. We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security. And Denmark is not going to be able to do it. Greenland should be part of the United States.

1:00:25The president has been very clear about that. That is the formal position of the U.S. government. Greenland is an autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would hold meetings about Greenland next week. In the past, he's expressed that the U.S. could purchase Greenland. Nancy, what sort of response has this rhetoric from the administration elicited from Denmark as well as the EU? Frankly, profound fear. I think, you know, during the first administration when this first came up, Denmark described the idea as absurd. And now they're taking it far more seriously and are fearful because of the implications of it.

1:01:03notably, and as the Danes said, that if this were to go through, that that's sort of the, as they described, the end of the NATO alliance as we know it. And the reason that's important is what they're saying is NATO was designed to protect allies from threats. It can't be that the sort of leading military partner now poses a threat to one of its partners. And so I would just note that the Danes have honored that agreement so much so that after the 9-11 attacks and during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the Danes provided troops to Afghanistan. And so the only thing I just wanted to add to it is what the president describes as national security threats.

1:01:41There's a 1951 agreement that allows the U.S. military to reach military deals with the government in Denmark and in conjunction with those in Greenland for the kind of security measures that he's saying is so essential. That is, there are deals such that it doesn't require the U.S. taking of Greenland as Stephen Miller described it. Jan, can you just give us a little bit more of a history lesson of what Nancy's talking about here in terms of what, first of all, claim the U.S. has over Greenland, but also in terms of these military agreements and national security, what exists currently between what the U.S.

1:02:15can do in Greenland? Well, the U.S. doesn't have a specific claim over Greenland. It has security concerns, and it's maintained bases there ever since World War II to fight the Nazis. It even offered to buy it from Denmark during the Truman administration in 1946 for$100 million. That fell on deaf ears. What we have seen is specific defense deals with the Danes and the Greenlanders expanded over time. So now we have Batufik air space base there, which is used for missile warning, satellite tracking. J.D. Vance, of course, visited that year, last year. It's covered under NATO collective defense.

1:02:52but no specific claim. So any U.S. effort to buy it or to attack it could get really awkward really fast. And that was kind of the tone that we saw on Capitol Hill this week, the Danish ambassador, other officials visiting key offices, Jean Shaheen, Roger Wicker, and Roger Wicker, of course, a close ally of the administration, basically coming out and say, let's drop this. And but there are military agreements that allow the U.S. to basically operate fairly freely within Greenland, correct, from to the national security point that the president has been raising. That's right. U.S. bases are U.S.

1:03:27turf. The U.S. can operate from those areas, but it's different than a specific claim to sovereignty. There's no legal basis for a sovereignty claim that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and the administration are trying to assert. One listener sent us this, if the U.S. claims that Greenland is necessary for our security, couldn't Russia claim that Alaska is necessary to its security? Well, the latter would be an invasion because we have the military resources to defend Alaska, whereas, frankly, the U.S. could just show up and say we're claiming Greenland because they don't have the military assets to defend the territory.

1:04:06So I think that's sort of the big distinction. But I think the listeners getting at a key point is that we have operated under rules-based order with the presumption that the United States would uphold these agreements and alliances and military deals. And I think what the listeners really getting at is if the U.S. is willing to flout one agreement, what's to stop its foes from doing the same? Also this week, President Trump signed an executive order suspending U.S. support for 66 organizations, agencies, and commissions following his administration's review of participation in and funding for all international organizations, including those affiliated with the U.N.

1:04:45That's according to a White House release. The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the U.N.'s Population Agency and the U.N. Treaty that establishes international climate negotiations. And Jack, as we're talking about all of this, a very different picture as we start 2026 in terms of the U.S.'s role in the international order. Yeah, absolutely. And it's going to be fascinating. I mean, we're just two weeks out from the Munich Security Conference. This is usually where the United States kind of comes out with a major play in terms of its foreign policy.

1:05:19And last year we saw J.D. Vance basically browbeat the Europeans about sort of freedom within the European continent. So, I mean, yes, we're seeing absolutely kind of the manifestation of a lot of the things we were talking about in 2025 actually becoming more of a reality in 2026. And it's just going to be fascinating to see with Greenland now in the forefront. There are intense discussions going on behind the scenes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio today calling Marco Rubio to talk about Arctic security. You can bet that there was some butting of heads behind the scenes there. We've been talking about how some world leaders have reacted to the U.S.

1:05:57ouster of Venezuela's Maduro. I want to ask, though, about one power that we haven't talked about yet in this conversation. Elizabeth, what are we and what aren't we hearing from Russia and President Vladimir Putin in all of this? So we heard some condemnation from Russia's foreign ministry, but not Putin himself, which is interesting. And, you know, consider that in the past year, two major Russian allies have fallen despite having Russian-supplied defenses, Maduro in Venezuela and also Bashar al-Assad in Syria. So not a good look for Putin in terms of his ability to protect Russia's allies. And I think also Ukraine is a reason for Putin's silence on this issue.

1:06:38He likely doesn't want to antagonize Trump at a time when the U.S. is brokering talks over a ceasefire and post-war security arrangements there. One former Kremlin speechwriter told Politico, quote, what Putin promised to do in Ukraine, Trump did in half an hour. Jack, what does this mean for the perception of Putin as a global power? So, I mean, the split screen is pretty remarkable if you put them together. But let's put some things in perspective. This wasn't a ground invasion that anyone with an internet connection could spot on satellites for months. It was a highly secretive boutique smash and grab operation to take Maduro from power.

1:07:16Now, do the Russians have that ability? No. But is there embarrassment within the pro-Kremlin voices on Telegram and those folks who have wished cast for a better response in Ukraine? Certainly. But you have to remember, again, the U.S. did this in a country with air defenses that haven't been upgraded since the invention of the Internet. And it doesn't change a lot of the facts on the ground in Europe, which are Putin's rapidly scaled his defense industry. He stockpiled artillery. He seems to be rebuilding his military and his arsenal of precision guided munitions, which were spent down in the first days of Ukraine.

1:07:53Meanwhile, we see the U.S. equivocating on its support for NATO and Ukraine. The news has resurfaced a 2019 comment from Fiona Hill, an advisor to Donald Trump at the time. In a congressional hearing, she testified that Russian officials offered a, quote, very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine, meaning the U.S. would allow the U.S. reign of Venezuela in exchange for the U.S. to allow Russia to do the same in Ukraine. Nancy, what do you make of these resurfaced comments? That even then the Russians recognized that the president was looking to shore up the U.S. sphere of influence here and was willing to stop short of commitments that the U.S.

1:08:36had honored to allies like Ukraine in exchange for that. And I think it was in some ways prescient of where we are now, where we have the president outlining his national security strategy and Putin arguing that he should have Ukraine because it's part of his sphere of influence. And so as it turns out, it might have been a foretelling of where we are now. Let's turn now to news on the war in Ukraine. Here's Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, speaking to Fox and Friends first earlier this week. You know, we could be on the cusp of a peace deal. And so, you know, while we continue to pray for peace, we're also doing all the hard work to make sure we can sustain that peace.

1:09:15He was among the U.S. and European leaders who met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in Paris on Tuesday to sketch out what security for Ukraine could look like if fighting stops. But last night, Russia used a new hypersonic missile in a massive overnight strike on Ukraine alongside drones and other missiles. Ukrainian officials say at least four were killed, 25 wounded in Kiev. Damage to infrastructure left 6 ,000 buildings there without heat as temperature plunged 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Elizabeth, can you put these developments side by side for us? We're hearing diplomatic optimism about a possible peace deal, but at the same time, Russia's carrying out these massive overnight strikes.

1:09:57How does this attack fit into where the war stands right now? And we've seen this pattern before. Right. Well, the usage of this particular missile was alarming because it is capable of carrying nuclear payloads in addition to conventional payloads. It hit near the Polish border. So, you know, it seemed like Russia's way of reminding Europe how close this conflict can get. It's only the second time that Moscow has used this specific missile since the war began. The first time was in November of 24. And I think to answer your question, you know, alongside these peace talks, I think this was kind of a warning shot from Putin.

1:10:36You know, just as these peace talks are starting to progress, you have this missile attack. Jack, can we go back to Paris and can you take us inside the talks? We saw leaders from 27 European countries in Canada, along with U.S. representatives, top officials from the EU and NATO. How are allies saying they would support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire? So it looks a lot like the model that was actually in place between 2014, of course, when Russia seized Crimea, and 2022 when they launched the full-scale invasion. That would be military hubs across Ukraine and protected facilities run by the UK and France.

1:11:14So similar to Yavariv military base, which was in place in western Ukraine, as well as kind of the break glass in case of emergency model that the U.S. had with javelins that were far behind the front lines. and then, of course, deployed up there in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. The thing that seems to be moving quite quickly are the security guarantees. In Paris, Witkoff said that the U.S. had developed, quote-unquote, security protocols that could defend against further attacks. So think potentially NATO Article 5, but we haven't seen these fully articulated. So in the next few weeks, whether we see Trump and Zelensky at Davos, perhaps we see some movement at the Munich Security Conference, It's going to be very critical to see what exactly is in this framework.

1:11:58But it does seem like there's optimism from the Ukrainian side. No word on whether the Russians are going to be OK with any of this. Optimism from the Ukrainian side. What guarantees do they have that this won't be a repeat of where we were in 2014? Well, they don't. I mean, right now they have the U.S. word that it won't be a repeat of what happened in 2022. So, I mean, we don't know anything beyond sort of these warm words from the United States and sort of the Ukrainian warmth towards it. It's interesting, though, that it does seem there's more warmth in the Ukrainian side than there was perhaps several weeks ago.

1:12:35So an indication that they're happier with where the U.S. has gotten on the guarantees. What are we hearing from the Russians? So far, nothing in terms of whether they're actually in on this plan. And they seem to have really stuck ever since 2022 and beyond on sort of the same principles that they don't want boots on the ground on the eastern flank. They especially don't want boots on the ground in Ukraine. So you can forget about that U.K. and French peacekeeping force that we've talked about potentially deploying into disputed areas or, of course, areas that Russia has seized since the full scale invasion.

1:13:10So it seems like Russia's posture is not shifting at all, and that could be potentially something that spoils any ceasefire deal. Nancy, can I just ask, we were earlier talking about NATO and Greenland and the possible damages to the alliance with Greenland. How is that affecting the calculus of this conversation with Ukraine and security guarantees? So remember, he has long said it cannot accept any deal that doesn't include security guarantees. And I think President Zelensky believes that the presence of foreign troops will make it clear to Russia that it risks NATO intervention if he continues to strike, that that's what that presence offers.

1:13:54It's a security guarantee framework short of NATO membership. the the challenge as you mentioned is we now potentially see a threat to that alliance in terms of how the u.s behaves towards greenland i think europe is trying to signal that it is trying to keep some semblance of that alliance by its willingness to put troops inside ukraine once it reaches a deal the longer-term challenge is that none of this is bringing Putin to the table. And Russia continues to say that it will not accept a security guarantee that includes these kinds of provisions. And so I think what you saw this week was a framework that met Zelensky's need for some kind of security guarantee, but nothing that promises an imminent end to the war itself.

1:14:46Can I ask all of you, Elizabeth, maybe you want to start here, How Europe, we talked about the alarm that Europe has expressed over this Greenland situation. What are we seeing from European officials in terms of preparing? Is there any conversation about preparing for the possibility of the end of NATO? Well, certainly I think the comments that we've heard from Trump this week, which have alarmed not only Greenlanders and Denmark, but those across NATO have the potential to severely undermine NATO's credibility and, you know, indirectly weaken support for Ukraine against Russia. I mean, I think, as we've heard pointed out this week, Article 5, you know, never foresaw a NATO member invading another ally.

1:15:34And that is a real concern right now in the alliance. I mean, the short answer is no. It seems like Mark Ruta and folks in NATO have always seen this as a political problem to be managed, but they're not managing a Trump 1.0 problem. They're managing a Trump 2.0 problem and certainly a Trump that's much more unchecked from any mores and any pro-NATO voices within the administration. Now, that being said, the relationship between the United States and NATO on the ground in Brussels has been quite good. There's a lot of praise from European officials about U.S. NATO Ambassador Matt Whitaker, who, of course, is a very close Trump ally.

1:16:14But I think one of the things we need to be watching in the coming weeks and months is just that defense posture as the U.S. looks to unveil its eastern flank defense posture. We've already seen the troops leave Romania. But the question more broadly is NATO defense planning requires the United States. It requires the nuclear umbrella. It requires American troops potentially coming over the Atlantic to fight a ground war in Europe if Russia does invade a European country, an eastern flank country, or perhaps in the northern flank. So if that's not there and that's withdrawing or the U.S. is withdrawing from those defense talks, that's something that needs to alarm European officials.

1:16:55You know what I've seen even before Greenland was European partners really bolstering their spending on defense in ways that we never thought, particularly in Germany and France. I think up until this point, there was an assumption that if a NATO ally came to under attack, that the United States would lead the military response. And now you see this sort of surge of investment in the military because there's a recognition that that might not happen. The challenge is the timeline because to get it in place in such a way that you can sufficiently supplement or at least in some ways replicate what you expected from the United States is a multi-year, maybe a decade-long proposition at a time when the world feels increasingly unstable and that there's not a decade to sort of wait for that to come into play.

1:17:42So I think what you're seeing is a NATO alliance that is preparing and investing for a different kind of U.S. investment in the alliance. That's Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic. We're also with defense reporter from Politico, Jack Datch, and Almonitor's diplomatic correspondent, Elizabeth Hagedorn. Let's move now to some news out of the Middle East. In Syria, political instability is leading to violent crashes in the northern city of Aleppo. At least 10 people have been killed in fighting between Syria's army and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia. Schools, government buildings, and an airport have shut down.

1:18:19The Syrian army is urging residents to evacuate neighborhoods in Aleppo, saying they'll begin military campaigns against the SDF. It's the most violence Syria has seen since the ousting of Bashar al-Assad just over a year ago in December 2024. Elizabeth, what can you tell us about this violence? Who is the SDF and what's the cause of this conflict? So the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, are a U.S.-backed, primarily Kurdish-led force in the northeast of Syria that the U.S. worked with several years ago to defeat ISIS. Fast forward to what's happening now in Aleppo. you had several days of clashes amid the context of the Trump administration trying to get the SDF and the national Syrian military to merge.

1:19:06And the reason why these efforts have stalled over the past year is you have deep mistrust between the several government in Damascus that is backed by Turkey, whose leader is a former Sunni Islamist militant, and the Kurds in the Northeast who are minority and who want to retain some autonomy should they integrate into the state's military. And I think, you know, these deadly clashes in Aleppo, this inability to integrate the two armies will continue to be a major challenge for Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara, who since toppling Bashar Assad a year ago has said he can unite the country. And we've yet to see that.

1:19:47Meanwhile, Donald Trump's plan for Gaza is moving forward. The U.N. Security Council agreed on the Trump plan in November. It involves the creation of a board of peace headed by the president himself to temporarily govern the territory. On Thursday, Israel announced a former UN Mideast envoy and Bulgarian diplomat will be director general of the board. Jack, can I ask first, how much involvement do the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza and their allies have on this board of peace? And can you also just sort of let us know what phase we're in with the ceasefire, just kind of remind everybody?

1:20:22Well, trying to get from phase, limping from phase one to phase two, there's been, of course, continued Israeli attacks. So, I mean, even in this point of, quote unquote, ceasefire, you've seen more than 250 Palestinians killed in Gaza as there have been drone attacks, shelling, various sorts of bombings and other raids. So it's not exactly a peaceful point in the ceasefire. And it is fragile. International monitors do stress. It doesn't seem like this is a board that would specifically be representative of Palestinian interests. You have the UK, Germany, the European countries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey.

1:21:02So you have Arab allies potentially on board for the Palestinians representing their interests, but no direct representation. So it's going to be interesting to see on the Palestinian side if Hamas, perhaps Fatah, are getting the things that they feel like they want out of this to move into the next phase or whether they feel like this is just a moondoggle here. Could I just quickly add to Jack's excellent description? This is the hardest phase. Jack outlined how fragile phase one was. This is the phase that's supposed to lead to the disarming of Hamas, the configuration of the stabilization force, a structure for government, what reconstruction would look like.

1:21:45And so the problems in phase one, I think, make many people worried about how a group who aren't based in the Middle East can figure out these really tricky problems that have plagued this conflict since the war began in terms of finding the solutions to these very, very difficult questions. I feel like we should take a deep breath. We've talked about a lot in the past hour, but we're almost out of time. And I just want to ask all of you if you have any final thoughts or what you're looking towards for next week. Certainly, it's kind of hard to predict what's already happened in this first full week of the year.

1:22:23There's supposed to be a meeting between the U.S. and Denmark next week, and I think that'll give us a sense in terms of where these conversations are going. And so I don't feel like I have the luxury anymore to sort of think longer term, so I end up thinking just a few days ahead, and that's as far as I've gotten. Yeah, that's good. I'm watching what's happening in Yemen between the Saudi-backed government's forces there and the Emirati-backed separatists who want an independent state. The U.S. is kind of caught in the middle of what's become a proxy conflict between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, two of its closest Gulf partners.

1:22:55And all this time, you know, that's a conflict that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis are eager to exploit. Yeah, what a year this week has been, right? I mean, the administration has an enormous bandwidth problem. We just talked about Gaza, but the Ukraine talks are at a critical point. And they're trying to deal with the situation in Venezuela that, of course, is part of the administration's own making with the ouster of Nicolas Maduro. You have Greenland. So how are they going to manage all these things with a short-staffed administration and not everyone at full bandwidth? It's January 9th. I should point out to everyone.

1:23:30A big thank you to our panel today. Elizabeth Hagedorn, diplomatic correspondent for El Monitor. Nancy Youssef, staff writer at the Atlanta covering national security and the Defense Department. and Jack Datch, defense reporter at Politico. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. And Alexandra Bote is our senior supervising producer. Aileen Humphreys is the editor and producer of 1A On Demand. And Barb Anguiano produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson and Arfi Getty for additional podcast and on-demand support this week.

1:24:07This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Nyla Boodoo. Let's talk more soon. This is One It.