← What A Day
What A Day
Iran, Greenland, And Trump's Ego
00:24:07
In Iran, weeks of protests against the ruling regime have resulted in the deaths of thousands of protestors at the hands of the government. The Trump Administration has voiced its full-throated support for the protestors, with President Trump even claiming, “help is on its way.” Meanwhile, in Greenland, Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen joined Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a joint news conference to say, again, Greenland does not want to be a part of the United States. But, of course, the President wants to annex Greenland anyway. So to talk more about President Trump’s continued desire to stick his nose in other countries’ business, we talked to Ben Rhodes. He’s the former U.S. deputy national security advisor under the Obama Administration and the co-host of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the World. And in headlines, federal data shows roughly 800,000 fewer people have signed up for ACA individual health plans than at this time last year, net migration in the U.S. l...
Loading summary
Transcript47 lines
- [00:00]
Jane Coaston
Foreign It's Wednesday, January 14th. I'm Jane Coston, and this is what a day. The show that wishes every Republican was forthright as North Dakota Senator Kevin Kramer. Here he is on Fox Business Tuesday. Maybe the point should be if you're the attorney for Jay Poll and you.
- [00:19]
Ben Rhodes
Want to avoid an indictment, how about.
- [00:21]
Jane Coaston
You go to Gene Pirro and say.
- [00:23]
Ben Rhodes
I'll make a deal. I'll step down today if you'll drop the investigation today. To me, that would be a win win for everybody.
- [00:32]
Jane Coaston
Congratulations, Senator Kramer, for approving Jerome Powell's point. On today's show. Net migration in the US Likely reaches levels of zero or even less than zero. So much for that shining city on a hill thing. And Elon Musk's controversial AI bot Grok finds a new home inside the Pentagon. But let's start with Iran and Greenland, two places that under normal circumstances would literally never come up in the same sentence. But this is 2026, so sure, in Iran, weeks of protests against the ruling regime have resulted in the deaths of thousands of protesters at the hands of the government. The exact numbers are difficult to determine because of a near total blackout on Internet access in the country. For example, the New York Times has estimated that nearly 3,000 people have been killed during the unrest, while a source told CBS News on Tuesday that at least 12,000 people have died. But as PBS NewsHour reports here, the protesters keep coming.
- [01:36]
Ben Rhodes
In Iran, the street demands the end of the regime, spews contempt for their leaders and declares this the final battle.
- [01:49]
Jane Coaston
In response, the Trump administration has voiced its full throated support for the protesters because they aren't protesting the Trump administration. And during a visit to the Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday, President Donald Trump did a standard this is a TV season finale, not a world event thing on the subject. You said to Iran this morning that help is on the way for protesters. What did you mean by that? What kind of help?
- [02:11]
Ben Rhodes
You're going to have to figure that one out. I'm sorry.
- [02:13]
Jane Coaston
Meanwhile, in Greenland, Prime Minister Jens Friedrich Nielsen joined Denmark's Prime Minister Michael Mette Fredriksen in a joint news conference and said that again, Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.
- [02:27]
Commercial Voice
Greenland does not want to be owned by the usa. Greenland does not want to be governed by the usa. Greenland will not be part of the usa. We choose the Greenland we know today, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Now we are faced with a geopolitical crisis, and if we have to choose between the USA and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark.
- [02:47]
Jane Coaston
Seems pretty clear to me. But of course, Trump wants to annex Greenland anyway. Here he is on Tuesday speaking to reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, making weird, vague threats on the subject on Greenland. Sir, the premier of Greenland said today we prefer to stay with Denmark. Do you see that as the problem?
- [03:06]
Ben Rhodes
The premier of Greenland, well, that's their problem. That's their problem. I disagree with him. I don't know who he is, don't know anything about him, but that's going to be a big problem for him.
- [03:20]
Jane Coaston
So to talk more about President Trump's continued desire to stick his nose in other countries business, I talked to Ben Rhodes. He's the former US Deputy National Security Advisor under the Obama administration and the co host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. Ben, welcome back to what a Day.
- [03:36]
Ben Rhodes
Love being on Water day. I really do.
- [03:38]
Jane Coaston
Thank you.
- [03:39]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, it's just like we get through a lot. We do in a short period of time.
- [03:42]
Jane Coaston
A surprising amount. Speaking of which, Today Vice President J.D. vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are meeting with officials from Greenland and Denmark at the White House to talk about everything going on there. Going into these talks, which I still can't really believe are actually happening. Where does each country stand?
- [04:03]
Ben Rhodes
Well, the United States seems absolutely intent on taking Greenland. I think we should believe Donald Trump. He's come back to this, this again and again and again. He seems to have caught the conquest bug, which is never good for an autocratic leader. So seems like they want it and it's not going to go away. Denmark absolutely does not want the United States to take Greenland, which has been kind of a colony of theirs that then morphed into this arrangement where they subsidized the country and kind of run their foreign defense policy. And the Greenlanders, they are ambivalent about their relationship with Denmark. I think there's, you know, a bit of a colonial history that they don't like, understandably, but they've made very clear that they don't want to swap Denmark for the United States at all. Like, if you, if you're tired of being colonized, the answer to that is not to just invite the biggest empire in to colonize you.
- [04:54]
Jane Coaston
Right.
- [04:54]
Ben Rhodes
And they're ambivalent about becoming independent right now too, because they understandably probably feel like if they become an independent country of only, you know, 50,000 or so people, that they're very vulnerable. So I would imagine that both Denmark and Greenland, in their own way, for their own reasons, are there to say no. And J.D. vance is there to say we are not taking no for an answer.
- [05:14]
Jane Coaston
Right. Which seems like an absurd position for the United States to take, especially given how little interest not just people in Greenland or people in Denmark have in this, but in how little interest Americans have in taking Greenland. But, like, what can we actually expect from these talks? Because it seems like America is going to say we want Greenland, and Greenland and Denmark are going to say no.
- [05:39]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. I think what is potentially worrisome as a scenario. Right. Is that, I don't know, maybe J.D. vance is going to offer to buy Greenland, because that's the line that Marco Rubio was telling people on Capitol Hill that, oh, no, we don't want to invade it, we just want to buy it. The problem is it's not for sale. But it could be like going through these motions of, well, we tried to do it this way, but now that that's failed and they won't listen to reason. And as Donald Trump says, we need Greenland for our national security, that we have no choice but to occupy Greenland. You know, so it could be that they're kind of going through some motions here, because otherwise, I just don't see how you reconcile these positions.
- [06:18]
Jane Coaston
No. And I mean, let's set aside the fact that Congress is supposed to be involved here to handle any sort of territorial expansion. Like, why is he so obsessed with Greenland?
- [06:29]
Ben Rhodes
I believe that he just wants a legacy where he conquered a lot of territory. It's as simple as that. Right. Like, that's what happens. Look at Putin. Like, you know, the autocrats get older and they're, what's my legacy going to be? This is the biggest potentially available piece of land out there in the world. He believes that this whole hemisphere, which includes Greenland, is kind of his to run as kind of the emperor of the Western Hemisphere. He just deposed the leader in Venezuela. And so I think first and foremost, he just wants a big chunk of territory. I think underneath that, there are a bunch of critical minerals and natural resources you could exploit in Greenland. And some of his buddies could make a lot of money off of that. He says he needs it for national security purposes because the Russians are up there, the Chinese are up there. Not in Greenland proper, but kind of in that region.
- [07:14]
Jane Coaston
In the Arctic.
- [07:15]
Ben Rhodes
In the Arctic region. But that's just not true because Denmark's a NATO ally, so we have all the access to Greenland that we need. We have a military base there already. We could build 10 more military. I'm sure that's what the Danes are offering. I'm sure is. Like, hey, like, you can build another military base here. But that's not what he's saying. He's saying we need it. And so ultimately, I don't think it's about defense in the same way. I don't think Venezuela is about drugs. It's about conquest.
- [07:41]
Jane Coaston
The president is also threatening to get involved in Iran, where sources in Iran say thousands of people have been killed over the past few weeks. On Tuesday, the president posted on Truth Social, quote, iranian patriots, keep protesting. Take over your institutions. Save the names of the killers, and abusers will pay a big price. First of all, I feel as if when presidents say that to people who are protesting autocratic regimes and don't, like, follow up on that. We've seen that with John F. Kennedy in Cuba, and we've seen this again in other historical instances.
- [08:10]
Ben Rhodes
George H.W.
- [08:11]
Jane Coaston
Bush in Iraq, exactly like the Kurds, it doesn't go great. But let's say Trump does get involved. What would US Involvement in Iran actually look like?
- [08:21]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, first of all, he's been saying this for days, and they've been protesting and they've been getting slaughtered for days. And the estimates range from 2,000 up to 20. 20,000. Look, I think what we know is that Trump is the kind of guy that likes to bomb countries, bombed a lot of them, but not get really involved with ground troops. Right. And so I think what he might try to do is decapitate the regime to take out maybe to kill the supreme leader of Iran if they can get his whereabouts, maybe take out other senior leaders of the Iranian regime, maybe take out military targets, and think that if you just bomb this regime for a day or two, it'll just collapse and the protesters will storm the government buildings, and that's the end of the Iranian regime. That's possible, I suppose, but leaves a gaping question as to what comes next inside of Iran, because it will be a chaotic and violent place if that happens. It already is. More so if that happens. And the people with the most weapons tend to emerge from that scenario. And the people with the most weapons are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the irgc, which is kind of the elite military force of the regime. And so it doesn't necessarily make things better if he just bombs this country because there's a protest movement.
- [09:50]
Jane Coaston
If the regime fell, who would potentially rise to power to replace it? You mentioned the irgc, but I think in the United States, you have Reza Pahlavi, who is the son of the former Shah of Iran. He's been living in exile since 1979 in the United States, there are kind of a lot of different factions all battling, and they're doing a lot of battling on the Internet over this. But in brass tacks terms, who do you think would be most likely to fill in that power vacuum? Besides the irgc?
- [10:20]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. I mean, first off, I think the IRGC is most likely because they're the most kind of armed. Then I think there's an alternative scenario where essentially maybe the top of the regime, like Khamenei, the supreme leader, flees the country or something, or he's ousted and you have kind of the more moderate remnants of the regime. There are some people there that, you know, like the former President Rouhani or the Laranjani family, that might try to emerge as kind of brokers to negotiate some transition away from the regime to something different that's not pulling the entire regime up root and branch, but is kind of trying to become more democratic and responsive to people. We'll see if that actually happens. Then there's a kind of collapse in which nobody fills the vacuum. Essentially, there are factions fighting out, there's a period of instability, kind of a failed state type of scenario. The Pahlavi. I just don't. I don't buy it. My experience, which includes mistakes like when we were in the Obama administration and Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in Libya, we had a very good collection of exiles who were smart and technocratic, and some of them were well connected, but they didn't know what was going on on the ground. And they showed up there to run the country and they ran nothing.
- [11:39]
Jane Coaston
Right. Pahlavi has not been there in nearly 50 years.
- [11:43]
Ben Rhodes
If you arrive in a shit show like that and there are people there with militias, they're not going to listen to you. You know, why. Why would the IRGC listen to Pahlavi? So I don't think it works. Never mind the optic of reinstalling the Shah regime, you know, which was loathed at the time. I mean, I. I don't think they want the United States to kind of like, de facto run Iran via, like, the Shah.
- [12:05]
Jane Coaston
You know, something I've been interested in is how it seems as if Iran is very isolated right now. Like, yes, they have, like, a longstanding relationship with Russia, but it doesn't feel like they. It does not feel like Putin would be like, I'll help. Like, what. How. How would Iran's allies react to American involvement?
- [12:23]
Ben Rhodes
Look, you're right. I've been struck by the fact that Iran did come to Russia's aid in Ukraine. They supplied a lot of drones and weapons for the Russians. The Russians haven't exactly right. They're not very reliable friend, let's just put that way. That said, the Chinese buy somewhere like 90% of Iran's oil like China and Russia do have significant interests inside of Iran and China would I think want to make sure they can keep getting Iranian oil and they'd be really nervous if it looked like the US is trying to install some regime. When these places become kind of violent quasi failed states, they become often proxy wars. And I could see a China, Russia backing the IRGC and their interests there. Just making sure the United States has not become the dominant player in Iran as well as in the Gulf Arab countries. And so even though they're not showing their hand now, this is a country of 90 million people with huge oil reserves, a very sophisticated population, a pretty capable military. This is not like a hollowed out Venezuela where you pick off Maduro in a special operation. This is a different stakes that we be messing around with and I just think our capacity to control events inside of Iran is going to be quite limited.
- [13:46]
Jane Coaston
Ben, as always, thank you so much for joining me.
- [13:48]
Ben Rhodes
Thanks.
- [13:50]
Jane Coaston
That was my conversation with Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor and co host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. We'll get to more than these in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack hydration and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar Protein Bars, IQ Mix Hydration Mixes and IQ Joe Mushroom Coffees are the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day. The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ Bar products and flavors. You get nine IQ Bars, eight IQ Mix Sticks and four IQ Joe Sticks. All IQ Bar products are clean, label, certified and entirely free of gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial ingredients. And all IQ Bar products are packed with clean, delicious ingredients to keep you physically and mentally fit, like magnesium, lion's mane and more. The new Year gives us all a chance to reset, maximize your brain and body's potential with IQ Bars, protein bars, hydration mixes and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack includes all three. I work out a lot, from lifting to running half marathons. IQ Bars help me stay ready for pretty much anything and the flavors are delicious. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ Bar products, including the Ultimate Sampler Pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, text WAD to 64,000. That's WAD to 64,000. Messaging data rates may apply. See Terms for details. What a day is brought to you by DeleteMe. DeleteMe makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the actual world. It makes everyone vulnerable. That's why it's so cool that the New York Times Wirecutter has named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. I want to keep myself and my family safe and Deleteme can help take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com wad and use promo code WAD at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com WAD and enter code WAD at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com WAD code WAD.
- [16:30]
Commercial Voice
There'S so much more to enjoy when you fly in Emirates Economy More legroom, delicious regionally inspired meals, complimentary free flowing drinks and with the latest movies, TV shows, music and live sport. Some of the best entertainment in the skies and our family services. Make your journey simple and fun. Plan your next trip and start the vacation early in Emirates Economy Fly Emirates fly better.
- [16:59]
Jane Coaston
Here's what else we're following today. Head of Lines.
- [17:05]
Ben Rhodes
If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are going to see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act.
- [17:19]
Jane Coaston
Last November, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders warned that letting the Affordable Care Act's enhanced subsidies expire would send premiums soaring. Well, he was right. The expiration of the enhanced subsidies has led to higher prices in the ACA marketplace. The Congressional Budget Office predicts the subsidy expiration could leave 2 million more Americans uninsured this year. Federal data released Monday shows roughly 800,000 fewer people have signed up for ACA individual health plans compared to this time last year. But people are still signing up. About 2.8 million people signed up for the first time this year, returning enrollment fell by about half a million people. Health policy experts warn enrollment numbers could fall further as people who were automatically re enrolled see their first bills and decide the higher costs aren't worth it. A bipartisan Senate group working on a deal to revive the lapsed ACA subsidies says it won't have legislative text ready until late January. The Pentagon launched a controversial attack in September on a suspected drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people. The Trump administration was accused of potential war crimes after it came to light that survivors clinging to the boat were killed in a second strike. Now the New York Times reports that the US aircraft used in that airstrike was painted and configured to resemble a civilian plane, with its missiles concealed inside the body of the plane rather than mounted under its wings. International law isn't cool, with combatants disguising themselves as civilians to launch attacks. That practice is known as perfidy, and it's considered a war crime, according to legal experts. The disguise component is key because the administration argues the killings were acts of war. Trump asserts that the US Is in an armed conflict with drug cartels, a claim many international legal experts dispute. But that's why this new alleged perfidy development matters so much. Because even if you buy the Pentagon's justification for the killings, disguising a military aircraft as civilian would still violate the laws of war. I mean, the US Military's own Commander's handbook makes it very clear honor prohibits perfidy. But on second thought, I guess that explains why this administration didn't see a problem with it.
- [19:33]
Ben Rhodes
Very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department. Long overdue.
- [19:43]
Jane Coaston
Secretary of War slash little boy Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, will be integrated into the Pentagon's network alongside Google's AI tool. That's right, the nation's most closely guarded secrets will be processed by Grok, which sounds less like a cutting edge AI and more like what a caveman says right before pointing at a rock. This comes just days after Grok, which is built into Twitter, caused international backlash for letting users digitally undress women without their consent and reportedly even create child sexual abuse material, a feature other AI chatbots prohibit in a world first. Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked the chatbot. The UK threatened to ban Twitter, drawing sharp rebuke from the Trump administration. Grok has since restricted image generation and editing to paid users because nothing stands between perverts and pedophiles and their images like $8 a month, Hegses said. That GROK will go live inside the Defense Department later this month. The Pentagon plans to make, quote, all appropriate data from military IT systems, including intelligence databases available for AI use. Has not one person seen Terminator 2 Judgment Day? No. For the first time in at least half a century, net migration in the US was likely close to zero or negative in 2025, according to estimates published by the Brookings Institution, a non partisan policy think tank. The Trump administration's xenophobic and nationalist agenda is hard at work. And though ICE arrests and deportations are making making headlines, the study highlights a slowdown in people coming to the U.S. new restrictions on humanitarian parole and refugee programs contributed to the lower migration numbers. The report's authors said they expect the administration's pattern of restrictive policy and increased enforcement to continue or intensify. They predict net migration numbers will likely stay in the negative in 2026. Of course, that comes with a caveat. Recent reductions in data transparency are making estimates more uncertain. So what does a slowdown in migration mean for the country as a whole? The economists write that it implies weaker employment and consumer spending growth. And this is where we tell you that the Brookings Institution estimates are vastly different from those released by the non partisan Congressional Budget Office last week. In its own estimate, the government suggests net migration was positive in 2025. And that's the. Before we go, the situation in Iran is escalating and it's very alarming. Iranians have taken to the streets repeatedly over the past 17 years to protest their authoritarian government. But right now the demonstrations are appearing to be the largest yet, with at least 2,000 deaths and rising. To understand how the country got there, tune in to Crooked's foreign policy podcast, Pod Save the World. This week, hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes unpack the latest out of Iran, Venezuela and their oil industry and growing threats to Mexico and Cuba. Plus, they sit down with Jason Rezaian, an Iranian American journalist who was wrongfully detained in Iran 10 years ago. Tune in to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. And remember that a lot of the allegedly pro Immigration and Customs Enforcement influencers you might see online are being paid by the government. And tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, not just about how Back in December, the Washington Post reported that ICE is spending $100 million on recruitment this year, including $8 million on deals with online influencers to encourage support for ICE featuring peer to peer messaging to, quote, normalize and show humanized careers at ICE through storytelling and lived experiences. Like me, what a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe@qriket.com subscribe I'm Jane Coston and I don't think we should normalize careers at ice. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Foer and Chris Allport. Our producer is Kaitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters and Matt Burke. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our Senior Vice President of News and Politics is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Kanter. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [24:40]
Commercial Voice
There's so much more to enjoy when you fly in Emirates Economy More legroom, delicious regionally inspired meals, complimentary free flowing drinks and with the latest movies, TV shows, music and live sport, some of the best entertainment in the skies and our family services make your journey simple and fun. Plan your next trip and start the vacation early in Emirates Economy. Fly Emirates fly better.
- [25:10]
The 2026 Chevy Equinox is more than an SUV. It's your Sunday tailgate and your parking lot snack bar. Your lucky jersey, your chairs and your big cooler fit perfectly in your even bigger cargo space. And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch diagonal touchscreen's got the playbook, the playlist and the tech to stay a step ahead. It's more than an suv. It's your Equinox Chevrolet. Together, let's drive.