A (3:02)

All right, so are you all relieved? Do you take Trump at his word? The most awful thing that could have happened was, in your view, an American military seizure or takeover of Greenland. Do you believe that's? Off the table now, as Trump says.

C (3:21)

Yes. And I do think that we kind of had three scenarios, good, bad, and ugly. And the good would be to find an off ramp and create a process to improve Arctic security through NATO. The bad one would be to have a tariff war continued. And the ugly one would have been military intervention. And I took two positive takeaways from the speech. One was he said there will be no military intervention intervention. And the second one was that he wants to improve Arctic security for national, and I quote, international reasons. So I think we've now de escalated, but obviously it's not over yet.

A (3:57)

Okay, so when you say it's not over yet, what do you mean? Because I didn't see any plan for de escalation. I didn't see the president suggest de escalation in his main objective, which was to acquire Greenland. So how do you think these. He said, I'm seeking immediate negotiations for the acquisition of Greenland. And then, as you know, he did a sort of what I call a goodfellas thing. You can either do it the easy way or the hard way. Either you agree with us and we'll be really grateful, or you don't and we'll remember. So what next?

C (4:31)

Well, I hope we have two processes. One process, which already began in Washington, D.C. last week when Foreign Minister Lars Recke Rasmussen from Denmark and the Foreign Minister of Greenland met with Vice President J.D. vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So that's a process which is supposed to last three months. They're working hard towards finding a solution. And I hope that we can create a second process. And this is where Mark Ruttes, Secretary General of NATO, would be in the lead where we start reinforcing Arctic security. And of course, as a Finn, I would be all in favor of that and doing it especially within the NATO framework.

A (5:16)

Okay, so let me just take those two points and I'm going to ask you whether there's been some miscommunication the president appeared to believe, and I don't know whether you've had the opportunity to talk to him in Davos. And that's what got him all upset earlier this week that Mark Rutte and your all deployment of military to Greenland. I mean, I know small numbers and some would just attach it. You guys said it was to do what Trump wants. In other words, to explore beefing up security. He thought that it was to confront him and stave off a US Military intervention. That's one issue. I want to know what you think about that miscommunication and is it cleared up? The other issue is what you just talked about, the visit to Washington of the two officials with the two American officials. Now after that, the spokeswoman from the White House said, oh, no, no, from our point of view, this discussion that the Danes and the Greenlanders are talking, just a discussion on acquisition and then the Danish FM had to say, no, that's not true. It's a discussion on how to meet everybody's objective short of acquisition. You know, basically Greenland is not for sale and it's not to be swallowed up. Do you believe the administration gets that, both those points?

C (6:32)

Well, the first point is that I think it was a misunderstanding. You see, we are working on something called Arctic Endurance, a mission which has eight different training exercises with American troops and Americans in the lead under the NATO umbrella. And the eight countries that sent troops there, they went on a reconnaissance mission which was agreed with us. So I hope that misunderstanding has been, you know, parked elsewhere. And for the second question, as far as the process is concerned, that's what I mean when I say that, you know, we're not out in the clear yet. Now there's a negotiation process with the Danes, with the Greenlanders and with the Americans and I'm hopeful that we'll find solutions. And of course, as a Nordic, it is for Denmark and for Greenland to decide about their own destiny.

A (7:24)

Exactly. I'm going to come back a little bit more to that, the economic part of it. But first, I was also struck by the President saying, I mean, he said it a lot, but his view that Europe is essentially nothing, NATO is essentially nothing without, without the United States backing and support. So then you said, or before you said that, in answer to a question, unequivocally, I believe Europe can defend itself. Do you actually believe that? And how?

C (7:55)

Well, I mean, remember that I come from a country which has one of the largest militaries in Europe. We only joined NATO less than three years ago. So we have conscription, obligatory military Service. We have 1 million men and women who have done that. And remember that our military trains only in Arctic conditions. So we basically have the strongest Arctic military force in the alliance. Secondly, we have 62 F18s. We just bought 64 F35s. We have long range missiles, air, land and sea, and we have the biggest artillery in Europe, together with Poland. So if I am asked the question, as the President of Finland and the Commander in Chief, can Finland defend itself? The answer is yes, we can. And we have done it before. So I do not under any circumstance want to reduce the deterrence effect of one of the largest and strongest militaries. There's a reason why we became NATO members so quickly and that is because NATO wanted us and America wanted us as well.

A (9:01)

And let's just say the worst had come to the worst and that, you know, the President didn't back off his military threats and there was a real threat of NATO going to war with itself, then the whole thing would have collapsed. According to the Danish Prime Minister, according to many people, no more NATO. But others were saying, people with a lot of experience, well, we don't want to trash NATO no matter what happens. And somehow we would form, I'm just going to say it myself, a rump NATO without the United States or some alternative that looks like NATO but the US isn't in it. Was that ever realistic?

C (9:39)

Well, I look at different scenarios, but I don't deal with almost what I would call utopian hypotheticals. What I think the United States is telling us is that Europe take more responsibility for your own defense, take a stronger stance in NATO. And that has many different elements. One of the elements is that we are increasing our defence expenditure to 5%. Another element is that we are increasing therefore our capabilities. And I think it's in the vested interest of the United States to stay engaged in NATO. But I fully also understand the American President and the American administration that they have been carrying the biggest burden, the biggest share of, of NATO's defense. And now there's a shift in the burden sharing. And as long as we keep on doing that slowly and surely, we'll be just fine. So I always, you know, I'm a little finish in these things. Calm down, take a sauna, take an ice bath, we'll sort this out.

A (10:38)

Okay, I'm going to come back to the sauna diplomacy in a minute because it's caused some, some sarcasm in Russia. But, but let me just ask you about this because look, 2025 was the year of NATO and the 5% and et cetera, 2026 appears to have started with the year of unrestrained military intervention. Might makes right. The United States does what it wants. Western hemisphere is mine. All the rest of it. You have spent a long time in Trump 1.0 and now, now appeasing this President, trying to do some of the good things he says needs to be done, but also trying not to, you know, ruffle any further feathers. So I'm going to play for you what both the Prime Minister of Canada and of Belgium said on the stage just before the President's speech.

E (11:26)

It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

F (11:42)

Until now we tried to appease the new president in the White House, but now so many red lines are being crossed that you have the choice between your self respect. Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else.

A (12:01)

Ooh, I was quite taken by the strength and the emotion of those last words, you know, wouldn't stand for being, quote, a miserable slave. And I just wonder from your perspective, has Europe had enough? Denmark seems to, you know, be chafing under what it considers to be a bit of an insulting and hurtful description of it by the US President. It can't defend itself. It can't defend, you know, Greenland. I mean, let's we all keep saying Denmark was one of the first to sacrifice hugely for the United States after 911 as a faithful and able NATO member. But what do you make of the what appears to be, you know, the straw that seems to be breaking the camels back in Europe now?

C (12:45)

Well, I mean, I have to admit that obviously the claims of Greenland have ruffled quite a few feathers here in Europe, to put it diplomatically. Having said that, I don't like the word appeasement or slave because that's not what the transatlantic partnership is all about. You will know, Christiane, that I'm very pro European, I'm pro American, and therefore by default I am a pro transatlantic partnership. But there are elements in this friendship that I think are holy and territorial integrity. Sovereignty and independence is one of them. We support each other on each other's security. But also what Mark Carney was saying there, I fully agree with him. I think we are looking at a world change in the world order a little bit similar to the one that we saw after World War I, World War II and the Cold War. And these orders, they last for two decades, four decades or three decades, and it'll probably take five years for the new order to be built. And I think the big tension here is between two things. One is multilateralism. That for me is the liberal world order, international institutions and norms. And the other one is multipolarity. And that for me is is deals, transaction and sphere of interest. And that's why I think we have a lot of Europeans who are in this first camp of multilateralism, whereas the American administration is driving multipolarity. And we're trying to make these two things meet. And that's what diplomacy is all about.

A (14:27)

Okay, so your book is called Triangle of Rebalancing the New World Order, and you've just talked about multilateralism, et cetera. How does this actually shape up? How does it shape? How does it take shape? We see a lot of European countries and others who see a rather. I don't know, people call it a bullying United States using the tariff as a weapon, not for trade, but for just about anything. How do you. And we see them cutting deals and, you know, shifting towards China a bit more, towards India a bit more towards here, there, and everywhere, trying to sort of maybe America proof themselves. How do you think? Then this takes shape? What is rebalancing the world order?

C (15:15)

Okay, I think the rebalance will basically be what I have now started to call a little bit the rectangle of power. So we have the United States, which is very focused on the Western Hemisphere and a lot of transactions. Then you have the global north, which has the values of the global west, liberal international institutions, et cetera. And what's going to happen is that there's going to be a lot of countries from the global south jostling for a position. And if we can convince a lot of the countries in the global south to say that the multilateral institutions are the ones that give us stability, then we will win the game, because transactions, usually they stop somewhere. But in order for that to happen, we need to reform the international institutions like the UN which means that countries that don't feel that they have agency or say in these institutions get it. That's why I've called for reform of the UN Security Council, doubling the members to 10, with representation from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. There are many different things that we can do, because I don't think we should go back to this world of spheres of power.

D (16:31)

Mm.

A (16:31)

Mm. Well, it is something that President Trump likes talking about hemispheres and who owns what and all the rest of it. I just wanted to go back to your sauna. Diplomacy, take an ice bath. Keep calm. As you know, Kirill Dmitriev is the special envoy for President Putin for all manner of things, including apparently Ukraine. He talks to special envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He said, stubbs, primitive approaches, golf, sauna, negotiation, poison pills do not work. Strategic thinking, partnership and focus on peace do. So your reaction to that, most particularly, you know, Trump again in his speech, was sort of drawing almost parallels, equivalences between Zelenskyy and Putin, Russia and Ukraine. What's your hope for you know, for getting this, getting some kind of peace deal.

C (17:25)

Well, my first observation is that I don't usually take issue with Russian information, wars, and propaganda. So I will leave the tweets of this particular gentleman to their own. I am more optimistic about the peace process. Why? Because now I feel that Ukraine, the United States and Europe are on the same page. We've been working on somewhere between five to seven documents, the key documents, 20 point plan, security guarantees, Prosperity plan, for instance. And I feel that we got new momentum into these negotiations when Jared Kushner joined in and started making things practical. So that's what gives me hope. What does not give me hope is that I don't believe that Russia is negotiating in good faith. I know that Jared Kushner and Witkoff are going to Moscow tomorrow, so we can be hopeful about that. But the truth is that Russia is not winning this war. Their economy is in shambles. Zero growth, interest rates 16%. If inflation goes at the rate at which it has begun this year, it's going to be 30%. They are out of reserves. On top of that, they will not be able to pay their soldiers when they come back from the front if there is a peace agreement. From a military perspective, this has been a failed mission for Russia. They have only gained less than 1% of territory in the past 1,000 days. They're talking about taking over villages in Ukraine, which they haven't succeeded. And what has been the human cost? The human cost has been over 1 million dead or wounded Russian soldiers. So there's going to have to be a lot of explanation going on in Russia. But we need to turn the narrative here in the west and understand that Russia is not going to win this war of attrition. Actually, actually, Zelenskyy has all the cards he needs.

A (19:26)

Yes, well, that you're gonna have to persuade President Trump because he keeps saying the opposite. And as a reporter, I have seen and witness what you are actually saying, that it's not winning right now, Russia. But I want to ask you then, what would you also say to President Trump as a European leader, when he says, we get nothing from you? Certainly from the British perspective, they say, hang on a second. He's got Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands. Those are ours. You know, he gets to use them for American, you know, big, big bombers. He's got the Ascension Islands, also ours. We let them refuel there. There's a special station north of Scotland which is an early warning system to protect states from Russian missiles and this and that. So they Brits think that the US Gets a lot. What would you say when he says we get nothing from you and you are nothing without us?

C (20:17)

Well, I think Finland and the United States has a very strong bilateral relationship where we give a lot to each other. We are, of course, a new NATO member state, but we are now responsible for the northeastern flank of the alliance. We have the largest military in NATO at this part of the world, together with Poland and then, of course, Turkey. On top of that, we have the strongest Arctic force in the alliance. We have thousands and thousands of American soldiers who come and train with Finnish soldiers. We have just bought, As I said, 64 F35s, a $10 billion deal with the United States. We have just sold 11 icebreakers which the United States desperately needs. We have just forged a defense cooperation agreement with the United States. On top of that, we work on technology, we work on critical minerals. So I think there is very much a mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Finland. So I feel that we are quite in a good place on that front.

A (21:28)

Okay. And one last, you know, 22nd. Will you be the European official envoy for negotiations with Putin and Russia on Ukraine?

C (21:40)

We've been talking about having a special envoy from the coalition of the willing or from the Europeans for over a year. I don't see that in the cards. I think we have a really good negotiating package right now with the Ukrainians working with the Europeans, with the Americans. So I'm quite happy where we are. But the truth is, at some stage, someone in Europe needs to start having also a dialogue on the highest level in Russia. And I hope the sooner we get into a peace and a peace process, the sooner we can do that. And of course, I say this from a very realistic perspective. No matter what happens, Finland will continue to have a 1,340 kilometer long border with Russia. And we always want to get along with our neighbors, even if the situation is difficult right now.

G (22:29)

Right.

A (22:29)

Okay. President Alexander Stubb, thank you very much for joining us from Davos. And we'll be right back after the break.

H (22:41)

Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. You'll hear deeply moving and honest discussions with people who have faced and are living with life altering losses.

D (22:55)

Loss is something you have to navigate. It's not a thing where time heals all wounds.

H (23:01)

My guest is legendary rock musician, writer, poet Patti Smith.

D (23:05)

They're sacred wounds. They're not going to heal. You learn to live with them.

H (23:10)

Talking grief, building community that's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

A (23:29)

Now, if NATO has been spared a war within, have allies dodged Trump's threat of economic warfare over Greenland? He never mentioned it during his Davos speech. Other than this way, they have a choice.

B (23:42)

You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.

A (23:51)

But this week began with Europe in shock over his threatened tariffs on countries that refused to help him acquire Greenland. Trump also threatened France specifically with a 200% tariff on its wine and champagne over its refusal to join the president's board of Peace. Europe, though, has a threat of its own in its back pocket, the so called bazooka, a retaliatory measure that would impose tariffs on about $100 billion of U.S. imports. Kellyanne Shaw was a White House trade advis in the first Trump administration and she's joining us now. Welcome to the program.

F (24:26)

Thank you so much for having me.

A (24:28)

I heard you earlier this week talking about the anticipation of what President Trump might say to Europe face to face. After all the threats, you pretty much thought that he would move away from the military and towards negotiation. And that seems to be where he is. Is that is, is what he said today what you expected?

F (24:51)

It is, I think that his remarks were very broad in terms of everything that he covered. But with respect to Greenland in particular, taking that military action off the table I think was a step to try to lower some of the temperatures. But clearly Greenland is the number one topic of conversation at Davos this week. I have been in touch with a number of folks who are on the ground there, and they said that they expect this to come up in every single conversation. So this is the time to resolve things. I think a few days ago was the time to try to bring the issue to the table in the forefront. And now we're seeing the president try to chart a very straight path in terms of negotiations.

A (25:28)

All right, so you explain to us then how what a negotiation would look like. Look, we start with the fact that the Danes and the Greenlandics say we're not for sale, nor are we to be swallowed up. You have the Europeans saying the same, but you're also having everybody say, hang on, the United States has a really good, it can pretty much go anywhere anyway, anytime, can do essentially what it wants. I could read you something in a second if I could just find it. I will. But nonetheless, it does give the US a lot of access. So given that, where do you Think this goes because President Trump says he wants to acquire it. And he used what I call the goodfellas script. We can either do this the easy way or the hard way.

F (26:14)

Sure. Well, I spent a lot of time with the President and the senior economic team in the first administration, negotiating with several different countries, many world leaders. And I can say the ones that are the most successful are the ones that meet the president at the core of his issue. And in this case, he is specifically raising issues related to national security, to potential threats, both now and in the future from Russia and from China. And those are the concerns that the United States has, particularly given that Greenland is the largest island on the planet outside of a continent. And Denmark, who is currently in control of Greenland, may not be equipped militarily to adequately defend a landmass that is predominantly in North America. And so I think those are the issues that the President is going to want to hear addressed from his counterparts in Europe and from the Danish government as well as the Greenland people. That's really at the heart and soul of his concern. But I don't know exactly where this goes. The President has said he wants total control. I think it's very broad term. We'll see where this ultimately.

A (27:17)

Okay, so that, that. That agreement I was reaching for in 1951 between the US and Denmark, where US would be able to construct, install, maintain and operate facilities and equipment in Greenland station and house personnel, control operation of ships, aircraft and waterborne craft and vehicles. That's just a little of what the US Gets. It's a lot. And others have said that, yes, yes, the ice is melting, yes, there will be a threat, but the threat of China, et cetera, is 2 dec. That it's not an immediate threat and that NATO is well aware of it and is well postured to, as you heard from President Stubb, to defend all NATO territory. So given what you've just said, that and what President says control of Greenland is what he wants, some people ask him, is it why? You know, why, with all this ability to do what you want there? He says, perhaps it's psychological, you know, and he said it today on the stage. When you own something, you're more incentivized to defend it. What if you rent or lease or stuff like that? I mean, okay, okay, from a real estate point of view, I understand that you want to be an owner, a house owner, not a renter. But is it worth the complete disruption that we've been witnessing just to get ownership over something you can already control?

F (28:42)

So I think A couple of things. So, one, I don't think this is just a threat that is 20 years from now. I mean, if you look at China and I worked on Greenland policy during the first administration, when the administration was joking about putting a Trump Hotel on Greenland. But behind the scenes, we were having real substantive conversations with Denmark over some of our national security concerns. And that's because China has created this concept of a polar Silk Road. It is working very closely with Russia through joint exercises, as well as setting up infrastructure along the Northern Sea route to try to capture what it thinks is the future of trade and the future of military, which is all the Arctic and the high north. And they also have aspirations when it comes to Antarctica as well, which we can talk about. But these are things that China is doing. They have four icebreakers. They are not an Arctic nation. They have no Arctic territory. The United States only has three. And thanks to Finland and from the conversation just earlier, we will be stepping that up in terms of our capabilities. But there are real and present threats here today which are only going to escalate in the future. So in terms of how to resolve that, I think there are a number of things that can be done. In the first administration, we were looking at things like strengthening investment rules, trade rules, all the way up to something much more formal, like a potential statehood or part of a free association of states. But everything in between was on the table. And I think now the issues are more national security, less economic, but they're still there. And I do think that these are negotiations that are going to span many months as opposed to just the next few weeks.

A (30:19)

Yeah, I'm sure you're absolutely right. And for sure, China is considered the biggest, say, challenger to the West. But you see what Western leaders are doing. Prime Minister Carney of Canada, he went into a whole new chapter of cooperation with China, launching a new strategic partnership, relaxing Canada tariffs on China's EVs. Britain here has just approved a controversial build of a mega China Chinese embassy in London. Others could follow. And the Chinese vice president was at Davos. Is at Davos. And this is what he said about being, quote, a credible and reliable alternative to US Centric trade.

E (31:02)

China is committed to fostering common prosperity with its trading partners through its own development and making the pie bigger for global economy and trade. We never seek trade surplus. On top of being the world's factory, we hope to be the world's market, too.

A (31:16)

So, I mean, they're very clear and it's probably, you know, hard to hear them positioning themselves as credible partners for those who are concerned about the United States. But Kenny Anshaw, I was, I'm always intrigued by President Trump when he speaks about President Xi, for instance, or China. He praised them today on the stage. And then in his other bailat and others that were televised, he's not going after President Xi. And you know, we know that China is heavily all over Venezuela, over the southern, you know, South America, et cetera, and not much mention of that during the Venezuela operation. So what, how do you think this president, this administration, is actually dealing with China?

F (32:02)

Yeah, I think it's a great question. And look, I think from the US Perspective, China is the single most significant adversary or competitor, depending on which way you slice this. But right now we are in this period of a detente and this is a constructed 1 year, 12 month period where the United States and China are going to refrain from effectively going after one another, not just on the rare earth issue, not just on tariffs, but overall. You can see the Trump administration not specifically targeting China in any way, shape or form other than in these third countries where you're seeing some of this dynamic play out. But that said, long term, I think that the United States and China are heading for a much more difficult path. And so once we get past this 12 month mark where the US is trying desperately to diversify in terms of critical minerals, rare earths and processing, and China, for its part, is trying to diversify away from dependence on the US for the AI race, we'll see where we are next November when the two leaders again have to renew that deal or not. But I think long term, both sides are aware that this is not going to necessarily end that well. So when you see Prime Minister Carney and others trying to make inroads with China, it does still give the administration pause, even though you do hear the president say nice things about Xi. Now, I think long term, it's a different story.

A (33:26)

Yeah. I mean, they would argue that it's because of the threats they get and the bludgeoning they get from the United States. But I want to ask you about tariffs. I've spoken to many officials over here, including the head of the wto, who they believe that Trump tariffs are not about trade, they're about a bludgeon, about foreign policy, about getting his way. So now I don't know what you think. Probably not. You probably think differently, but the Supreme Court is, is presumably going to rule on it. What do you expect to be the result? And where will Trump tariffs land, you think, legally?

F (34:00)

Yeah. Well, let me Start with the tariffs themselves, because I actually do agree with some of that, but not all of it. You're right. I think the president uses tariffs for all sorts of purposes. Some of them are about leveling the playing field. This idea of your tariffs are too high, ours are too low. We need to make them reciprocal. Some of them are about incentivizing certain strategic supply chains, like for steel, steel, aluminum, semiconductors. And some of them are just about pure foreign policy goals, like we're seeing with Greenland, like we saw with those tariffs that are on India for its purchases of Russian oil, tariff threats on Brazil and other nations that are totally separate from economics. So we'll see what the Supreme Court does. We ultimately don't know it's in their hands. I have every confidence that the administration intends to replace these tariffs with other types of authority. And I think they have a lot of different levers to pull from.

H (34:51)

But.

F (34:51)

But the story is going to be the same for the rest of the Trump administration, regardless of what authority he's ultimately using.

A (34:58)

And finally, about the Supreme Court. As you know, they're hearing arguments in the case against Lisa Cook, who is a governor on the board of the Federal Reserve governing board. Trump made a move to fire her. And the Supreme Court allegedly looks a bit sort of skeptical about that. But also in the room was the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, who's also, you know, under investigation by the doj, threatening a criminal indictment, and he's pushed back very significantly against that. I guess my question to you is all of this is unprecedented. How does that serve America in terms of its economy, in terms of its growth, in terms of its credibility at home and abroad?

F (35:41)

I think, look, the president and the administration are trying to take a generational swing at both the global trade and financial systems, and they're also doing it on the domestic policy front as well. So these are massive swings. And I think you mentioned before these tariffs, rocking the boat, causing disruption with the NATO alliance. I think it is disruptive, but it is not destructive. Meaning I fully expect the NATO alliance to remain intact. I fully expect investors to continue to pour in money to US Treasuries. I expect companies to come and invest in the United States. These are unprecedented and unprecedented tactics, to be clear. But the administration is hoping to land this over the next three years, and I think ultimately history is going to judge whether they were successful or not.

A (36:28)

Kellyanne Shaw, Trade Advisor to Trump 1.0, thank you so much indeed for being with us. And we will be right back after this break.

I (36:41)

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.

A (36:46)

Just the whole notion of replacing pieces.

C (36:48)

Of ourselves, how do we do that?

A (36:51)

Why do we do it?

I (36:52)

That's one of my favorite science writers, Mary Roach. For years she's explored big questions about the human body. This time, however, she's turned her attention to humanity's long fascination with replacing body parts. And the book is called Replaceable You. We're going to talk about what breakthroughs are already changing lives, what's still a work in progress, and what it really means to replace parts of yourself that work just as well, or maybe even better. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

D (37:27)

The engagement that broke the Internet.

F (37:29)

A Taylor Swift wedding is a pinnacle moment of celebrity culture.

D (37:34)

Could it have a billion dollar ripple effect on the wedding industry? I do. The Taylor and Travis era now streaming on the CN.

A (37:48)

Now the British government is launching a formal investigation into the social media platform X after the site's AI chatbot Grok was being used to generate and spread non consensual sexual images of women and children. Despite extensive backlash to the abusive imagery, Elon Musk and President Trump have claimed that any attempts to regulate the site would be an attack on free speech. Our next guest, the Atlantic staff writer Charles Warzel tells Harry Svein of Carson why Elon Musk cannot keep getting away with this.

G (38:20)

Christiane, thanks. Charlie Wurzel, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote a piece recently in the Atlantic and you said Elon Musk cannot get away with this. If there is no red line around AI generated sex abuse, then no line exists. And I wonder what got you so upset about this. You've been somebody who's covered technology companies and trends for years. Why does this feel different?

D (38:45)

Well, I think in some ways it's very self explanatory, right? This chatbot Grok, which is hooked into Elon Musk's X, it's built by xai, his AI company that is also integrated with formerly Twitter, now X. It started to generate these images of people in bikinis or people in cellophane bikinis. So it was see through, et cetera. People that then started putting, you know, asking the chatbot to put pictures of, you know, seemingly children in there. And it started to become this tool that was, you know, hooked into this social network and it was used to viralize and weaponize this type of harassment. We've seen this since the arrival of generative AI. We've seen that there is a problem with these undressing apps, right, with people taking Photos of people and putting them in these compromising situations against their will. We've also seen problems with trolling and a lack of content moderation on platforms like X, under Elon Musk and even on Facebook and other places. We've seen message boards like 4chan that have these awful people on them who just want to cause chaos, who just want to hurt people, who just want to troll. What happened on X, from I think it was around 12-3-30 to very recently, was the combination of all these things. It was like taking 4chan and hooking it up to a popular social network that politicians, celebrities, brands, maybe you. I used to post on this network and it was being used to intimidate and harass at scale. It basically turned turned child sex abuse material and just normal, not like revenge porn style sexual abuse into a meme. And that was something I think was unprecedented.

G (40:49)

I want to read a statement that Grok or X's safety team, they posted, said, quote, we have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account on X globally from allowing the editing of images of real people and revealing clothing such as bikinis. This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers. Additionally, we'll geo block in jurisdictions where such content is illegal the ability of all users in those locations to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear and similar attire in Grok on X. So are the measures that they're taking sufficient? Do you see any evidence that it's actually happening and restricting any of this type of material from existing?

D (41:27)

I think that the measures are beginning to be sufficient or more sufficient. It happened basically over a series of steps. Right at first X decided that it was going to disable the ability for image generation for people to basically prompt the chatbot. Right. This was the weaponized, viralized thing. Acrock put her in a bikini, it disabled that, which sort of added one small, small layer of fraction friction.

G (41:57)

Yeah.

D (41:57)

Then the platform said, okay, we're going to make image generation a paid feature. That in itself was somewhat disturbing because then it essentially makes, you know, non consensual AI generated revenge porn a a paid feature on the platform. After I'd say, you know, three or four days of more and more pressure and outrage. Finally they took these restrictions. Restrictions. There are now many, many fewer instances. I have not really been able to find instances of this being abused in the way that it was. But if you go to other forums right there, there are Reddit pages, there are other, I won't, you know, describe where they are in other corners of the Internet you see people trying as a group, group to jailbreak Grok and these image generators trying to get around all those guardrails and trying to figure out the best way to prompt a chatbot to put someone in these types of compromising situations. So I think that the problem has been addressed for now. But it took basically two weeks of some of the most heinous stuff that I have seen on the Internet as a product feature for, for this company to act.

G (43:24)

And one of your concerns is, is that while this might have happened in the backwaters of the Internet, this was right in the kind of the main bloodstream here. And it, this just weaponized the scale of how fast this information could spread. Am I right?

D (43:35)

Yeah. It becomes a meme and it becomes a culture. Right? There's, there's a lot of, there's always been a problem with, you know, women and vulnerable people being harassed on X and across social media and all kinds of places. And some of that is just the chaos of tons of people being networked together. You're going to get bad actors and it's a whack, a mole problem. Right. This was a different order of magnitude because it became a game that people were playing. And you know, Elon Musk has said for a very long time that he is this free speech maximalist. Now he doesn't practice that in his actual running of X. But there was this feeling, as there is always when there are these trolls and harassers on the platform, that this is just, you know, if you're going to make a free speech omelet, you're going to have to break some eggs. Right. This is just what it looks like in practice. That is fundamentally not the case. That argument is actually wrong because as you saw with this, when people were trying to call out this behavior, when people were to trying, trying to flag politicians or other tech companies who could pressure Elon Musk or Elon Musk himself, there was an army of trolls who are using this feature to silence women to basically bully them off the platform.

G (44:51)

Several countries have decided to push back on what happened over these couple of weeks. Indonesia, Malaysia, they've suspended the AI bot. Australia, Canada, France, Malaysia, UK have kind of investigated the creation of all of these sexualized deepfake images. Is California is looking at an investigation whether or not the Grok bot basically violated the state laws by facilitating the creation of non consensual sexual images. And I wonder, are any of these things going to be enough of a consequence for Elon Musk or Grok to change the way that they roll out product features.

D (45:30)

The bans are, you know, interesting. Right. People can obviously get around them with VPNs or things like that.

G (45:38)

Yeah.

D (45:39)

I think that when it comes to legislation in the government or people, you know, like California, looking into this, I think what is important in this sense is that people in power or who can put pressure on these companies care enough to look into to it to threaten that action. Right. There needs to be some kind of feeling of consequences. Because what's happened right now is, and I wrote this in the piece, this feeling of this culture of impunity, this crisis of impunity right now in the second Trump administration, where Donald Trump sort of sets the standard for how a lot of different institutions and. And politicians and executives and people with power can behave. And there is this feeling that there are no consequences. There's too much going on, there's too much chaos. The zone is so flooded that basically, if you can just hang on and not apologize and just move forward, it will get buried by the next avalanche of bad news or outrage or what have you, and you can just kind of keep going and making money and doing the thing that you wanted to do. And I think what. The reason I wrote this piece, the reason I'm so mad about this, the reason why I do think that it's great that some lawmakers are looking into this, is that this was such an egregious example of somebody running a company so recklessly and hurting all these vulnerable people that I think this is a moment for us to kind of freeze on something like this and say, people need to suffer some kind of consequences for this. There are young children who were sexually harassed whose image, you know, was used against their will in a sexual manner. And we can't just look away from that. We can't just say, oh, you know, it's a bug. This is something that we just have to deal with in the age of generative AI. And if we as a society do give up and just let them run roughshod, I think that we've crossed some kind of line, and I don't think we can claw it back. We can't. We basically then have said, we've ceded these platforms to chaos.

G (48:05)

A statement from Elon said, I'm not aware of any naked, underage images generated by grok. Literally zero. When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal. As the operating principle for GROK is to obey the laws of any given country or state, There may be times when ADVERSARIAL hacking of GROK prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately. Have they fixed all of these bugs?

D (48:33)

Well, to be fair to X, they have fixed plenty to try to respond to some of this outrage as it has really reached a fever pit. But the idea that Musk is separating in his mind this idea of what GROK is generating versus what it's generating when it's being adversarially hacked. You can't do that as the owner of a piece of technology because there is no technology that reaches a certain level of prominence that isn't adversarially hacked. This is, is the table stakes of creating a technology that you deploy out to millions of people is that you have to play this game of whack a mole. You have to have teams of people who are willing to protect the users from people who are going to try to break the technology.

G (49:28)

At the same time that this is happening or was happening, the Pentagon announced that GROK would be integrated on quote, every, every unclassified and classified network throughout the Pentagon systems. Should we be concerned on a structural level that a software, let's just look at it as a software company rolls out something to the public that's so bad and at the same time it's going to have access to every military secret that we have.

D (50:03)

I don't look at it and say, say GROK is bad, right? Grok is, is, is, is, you know, a bully or GROK is a sexual deviant or something like that. It's all about the parameters. It's all about what the people who are programming these models, like the guardrails that they're instituting, the, the ways that they are being, you know, prompted behind the scenes to respond. Right? And GROK is being prompted to respond in a racier manner, in a sort of no holds barred, no, you know, no censorship manner. And so my worry is with the people who are in charge of that company. They are making these decisions. Elon Musk, other people at XAI are making these decisions to have their large language model behave in a very specific way. And that is extremely concerning when you start thinking about the ways that, you know, it could be integrated with the Pentagon.

G (50:58)

You know, when you broaden this out. There was a UK based nonprofit called the Internet Watch foundation foundation, and in 2024 they found 13 instances of AI generated videos of child sex abuse. In 2025 they found 3440. And that's before any of the stuff with GROK that we're talking about if this trajectory continues. I just wonder in 26 or 27, what percentage of what's generated by AI goes from oh look, you know, it's funny cat videos to this stuff.

D (51:43)

The truth is it's going to go up if we let it. That number is going to go up if as a society, as a culture, in places like Silicon Valley, the people who make these tools, the politicians, the watchdogs, etc, the press, everyone, if we allow it to, if we let these instances slip by and people don't lose their jobs or these companies don't face significant repercussions. And I'm not talking about slap on the wrist, it's going to go up and it's going to go up in a way that is incredibly concerning if you are a person with a conscience or a parent or truly anyone who has a sense of moral compass, because I've been in these communities to report on them at great psychological turmoil to myself and watched these anonymous people bring up innocent photos taken from Instagram and say, hey, can you put this person in this thing, A daughter, a son, a, you know, a younger person, what have you. It's disgusting, it's despicable. And if we do not draw the reddest of red lines around this AI generated non consensual sex abuse material of minors, but also just, you know, people of age, if we do not culturally just say, this is poison, this is cancerous, this needs to be excised, this behavior needs to be treated the same way we treat that material when it's not AI generated and it's out in the world. If we don't do something about that, that number is going to go up and real people are going to be devastated by that. And I just think that those are the stakes of this entire scandal.

G (53:36)

Staff writer at the Atlantic, Charlie Warzow. Thanks so much for Charlie, thanks for joining us.

D (53:39)

Thank you for having me.

A (53:41)

And the stakes are high. And finally, a sweet harvest after a bitter loss. This strawberry farm just opened in Oman after its Palestinian owners lost their farm to the war in Gaza. The Al Ghul family used to grow their fruit in Beit Lahiya, exporting them to Jordan and Europe. But after October 7, vast tracts of their farmland were destroyed and occupied by the idf. Today, with sheer determination and perseverance, new punnets of strawberries have successfully emerged in their barker garden. The manager says, quote, God willing, we'll reopen this project in Gaza. That's it for now. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.