Luke Vargas (2:29)

French President Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting this morning to look at how to handle the situation, but Dan said the limited military resources available in Europe mean there are a few good options.

Daniel Michaels (2:40)

Europeans just don't have that many forces available at their disposal, especially forces that are ready for very harsh Arctic conditions in Greenland, and it may well be that there aren't even places to put them in Greenland. So they do have to think about basic logistics issues like that. And these conversations are probably happening very quickly Even though Trump has expressed interest in Greenland since 2019, it's really only been since the US military action to grab Venezuela's losing leader, Nicolas Maduro, that Greenland has really come back into focus and in a more serious way.

Luke Vargas (3:16)

Meanwhile, President Trump appears to be backing off threats of an imminent attack on Iran. After previously stating that help is on its way, Trump told reporters yesterday that Iran had stopped killing protesters.

Unnamed Official (3:29)

We're going to watch it and see what the process is, but we were given a very good, very good statement by people that are aware of what's.

Luke Vargas (3:36)

Going on, considering military actions.

Unnamed Official (3:39)

They say no executions. Everyone is talking about a lot of executions were taking place today. We were just told no executions. I hope that's true. That's a big thing. Yes.

Luke Vargas (3:47)

Iran briefly closed its airspace overnight, a step it took during fighting with Israel last year, though it has since been reopened. Should Trump decide to authorize an attack, his options could be reined in by his redeployment of forces to the Caribbean, which has left the US without an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East. We will see how long that Caribbean deployment lasts. After the Trump administration yesterday assured lawmakers that it had no plans to send ground troops into or occupy Venezuela, that promise convinced a pair of Republican senators to back off their support for a bill aimed at limiting President Trump's war powers, leaving Vice President J.D. vance to break a tie in favor of the White House. Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Carina Machado is due to meet Trump at the White House today. Machado, who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize, had positioned herself as an ideological ally of Trump, only for the US to embrace Venezuelan vice president and Maduro loyalist Delsey Rodriguez. In Minneapolis, residents clashed with law enforcement last night after a federal immigration agent shot and injured a Venezuelan immigrant. The Department of Homeland Security said the man fled a traffic stop before crashing his car and fleeing on foot, which led to a struggle with an officer. He was then shot in the leg and later taken to a hospital. In a statement, DHS said the man came to the US in 2022 and was in the country illegally. And California's attorney general is investigating Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok over deepfakes XAI is being probed by authorities around the world following controversy over Grok's ability to generate sexual imagery of women and children. The company says it's now actively blocking the chatbot from undressing images of real people where it's illegal. Turning to markets There are signs of growth in Europe, Germany's, economy has expanded for the first time since 2022, thanks to huge investments into defense and infrastructure projects. Similarly, car manufacturers boosted UK gdp, which grew more than expected in November. On the earnings Front, Nvidia and Apple's relentless demand for AI chips boosted TSMC to record profits in 2025. The results are a relief for investors concerned about the cost of bringing semiconductor production to American soil, as the world's largest contract chip maker looks to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs. And it's another big day for banks, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley releasing their Q4 results before the US market open. Coming up, as part of an affordability push ahead of the midterms, President Trump is promising to cut credit card rates, stock buybacks and executive pay. Now Wall street is on the defensive. That's after the break.

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Luke Vargas (7:17)

There's a new theme emerging in 2026 the White House putting Wall street on the defensive. It's a common thread, the Journal's Gregory Zuckerman says ties together a slate of President Trump's recent actions aimed at prices, including calling for a cap on credit card interest rates, restricting stock buybacks for defense firms and homebuilders, and pushing tech companies to pick up the tab on higher electricity prices. Greg, were we expecting this?

Gregory Zuckerman (7:44)

Well, the writing was on the wall. Many investors sort of ignored it. But they have warned us. The administration has been saying for over a year that they're going to pivot to some extent from Wall street to Main street, meaning that they're going to enact or embrace or try to embrace policies that could potentially help in terms of affordability. All kinds of other measures may be helping the average person. So they have been telegraphing it to some extent. But yeah, investors have sort of ignored those warning signs.

Luke Vargas (8:13)

All right, ignoring the warning signs. We are very much now getting the actions that had been teased there. And do we think there's more coming?

Gregory Zuckerman (8:20)

Yeah, there is a sense that this is the beginning of an effort, and part of it is because midterm elections are are ahead this year. So the president and the administration are conscious of the polling numbers, which don't look tremendous, they're not so rosy for the Republicans. And the concern among many Americans is this affordability issue. It's a really unusual phenomenon in that the president has become something of an adversary to investors, to Wall street rather than an ally. And there are specific sectors and stocks that have been under pressure as a result of these policy initiatives. But the overall market is saying, well, let's see if they're actually enacted. And the overall economy is pretty strong and profits keep growing.

Luke Vargas (9:07)

All right, so some sectors may be seeing a bit of a share price dip. And yet the overall hit to shareholders, Greg, so far seems a bit contained. And then, of course, we need to see if there's follow through on the threats that Trump has been making. Very much an unknown at this point.

Gregory Zuckerman (9:22)

Well, investors are conscious of the fact that every initiative introduced doesn't necessarily become law, especially under this administration. Last year, we saw specifically a lot of the tariffs, gave us jitters, gave everybody jitters, gave investors jitters, and said the market plummeting. And yet there was a rollback, especially when markets reacted stocks and bonds. So investors at this point need actual proof evidence that these are actually going to be enacted. And you need congressional approval some of the times. And it's also the case that there are reasons to think that the administration may have second thoughts and specifically about credit cards. On the face of it, restricting the rates that people are charged to 10% seems like a good policy. Seems like it's something that's doing people a favor. But if it results in credit card companies restricting the credit that they provide to, let's say, borrowers with scuffed credit with poor credit histories and such, if they can't charge them 15, 16 plus percentage rates, if they can only charge them 10%, well, then maybe they won't give them credit cards anymore. They won't allow them to borrow. And that in turn may mean the administration may think twice about these policies.

Luke Vargas (10:43)

Yeah. Really intriguing electoral case study here. Right. Whether voters really align with Main street or Wall Street.

Gregory Zuckerman (10:49)

Yeah. There's a consensus, I think, among both parties that too much of the wealth has been concentrated and too few in this country, and there should be more efforts to help Main Street America. And yet when you roll up your sleeves and you try to do that and enact policy, it becomes quite tricky, as we're seeing.

Luke Vargas (11:08)

I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal special writer Gregory Zuckerman. Greg, thank you so much.

Gregory Zuckerman (11:12)

Oh, great to be here.

Luke Vargas (11:14)

And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bok. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show.

Narrator/Announcer (11:26)

And until then, thanks for listening.