The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Mass demonstrations in Iran and Trump sets his sights on Greenland and Latin America

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to watch and listen to full episodes of Friday Focus with Janice Stein. Your donor membership comes with other great perks like access to the videos of our main stage debates and full length episodes of our weekly podcasts with Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne. Rudyard and Janice begin today's show discussing the ongoing protests in Iran and whether they pose more of a threat to the regime than previous demonstrations. They also discuss the controversial killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minnesota, the Trump administration's gaslighting response, and the subsequent backlash from the American public. Will this tragic incident have an impact on immigration policy more broadly? In the second half of the show, Rudyard and Janice turn to Venezuela and the fallout from the U.S. attack and capture of President Nicolas Maduro. How seriously should we take Trump's imperialist rhetoric regarding Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland? Does this signal a new age of rank colonialism? And is this the end of the international rules-based world order as we know it? Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 9th of January 2025. I'm Richard Griffiths, Chair of the Monk Debates, joined by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, and my co-host on this program. Janice, great to be in conversation with you. Great to be here with you, Roger. What a week it has been since we last recorded on Friday, Janice, of the week before, we've had regime change in Venezuela. of a type. We've had an escalation of the war in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin launching an

intermediate range ballistic missile, hypersonic missile, and a big attack on Ukraine and the western parts of the country right up against the NATO borders. And today, Janice, we've got to start the show with what's happening in Iran. An internet blackout across the country, as protests seem to be accelerating in all regions of Iran. Let's begin there, Janice. What is your take on the scale of these protests? How do they compare to years past? And is this a moment of peril for the Iranian regime?

They're not the largest that Iran has ever experienced Rudyard. But I think in many ways they're the most severe because the official leadership is fundamentally saying openly we're out of ideas. We have no solution. This is a problem of rampant inflation, electricity cuts, inadequate water, and a declining currency currency which makes the imports into Iran through the roof. This is your worst nightmare about your inflation run wild and you've always been so eloquent about the destructive impact that has on people in the middle class. Well, they are the big, big victims in Iran. You know, one thing worth paying attention to, the son of the Shah was the one who pushed

these demonstrations up a significant level. People have always doubted his ability to mobilize, especially from outside the country. Well, he tested that, call people out onto the streets at 8 p.m. on Thursday evening. People responded, and that's what's led to the shutdown of the Internet in Iran and the crackdown that is going on. President Donald Trump has threatened, but so far not acted on the basis that if the Iranian regime began to kill a large number of protesters that the United States would intervene. Jas, what could that intervention look like?

We know that Israel is keen to say the least on striking Iran again on the basis that it's reconstituting its ballistic missile program. I guess there's all kinds of arguments why attacking a government that is self-immolating here on the basis of its serial mismanagement of the country could actually once again solidify subnational support for the government. But I wonder, Janice, I wonder if this is a moment where the government is in Iran is so vulnerable, is, as you say, has failed on the economy. There's been a widespread drought through Iran to the point where the government is now actively taking steps to move the capital to Iran. And of course, Janice,

just the humiliation of the destruction of its nuclear program by the United States. And what Israel did over the course of seven remarkable days last year, dominating the skies over Iran and showing this regime in a sense to be a paper tiger. I think the likelihood that, first of all, that Israel might attack Iran, which the Iranians have been saying they're very worried about, has gone way. down as these demonstrations have escalated. It's suicidal to attack when demonstrators are in the streets. You will just literally turn the whole situation to something else, which is resistant to a foreigner. So I think the likelihood of any serious military action against Iran right

now is very low despite Donald Trump's rhetoric. You know, he's, Donald Trump uses force when he's pretty confident that there will be low to no casualties, American casualties. That would not be the case here. So I really don't think that's real. What the other big factor that's played in Iran, right here is that the opposition is leaderless. People take to the streets, it's in it.

You know, it's huge frustration by Iranians, the mismanagement of their economy by their own government. That government is totally devoid of any legitimacy. But there's no obvious successor, and that's what's gotten in the way time after time after time. Really interesting that the son of the Shah Pavoli was able to exercise this control. So what to watch for here, does the opposition coalesce around him, even as a temporary or provisional leader? So far, as far as we know, no city has yet fallen. The Republican Guard still controls every major city inside Iran. Yeah, and they're not, the security forces do not seem to be defecting at the state.

point, which is often the critical turning point, because again, they, unlike the rest of the Iranian population, are enriched by the regime, widespread corruption, different perks and privileges that are obviously extended to write down, you know, to the lowest level of the security services. Janice, let's move on to so many topics to cover this week. Let's move on next to this just remarkable shooting in the United States of an ice agent, of an unarmed woman. I can't watch the videos.

I just don't. But from what I've heard from the videos being described, this was a case where this ICE officer clearly was in any kind of imminent danger, and yet fired three shots through passenger-side window, striking, killing a 30-year-old mother in the state of Minnesota. This is, I think Janice, shocked a lot of Americans. Do you have a feeling that this could be a turning point of sorts? where the compare and contrast between the reality of this killing versus the rhetoric of the administration, which has gone beyond gaslighting, into, in effect, an attack on this person,

wild allegations that she was somehow a domestic terrorist, completely unproven. and a strategy by the Trump administration, which I think this time has kind of backfired, where they have this, where they immediately take everything to 11 on the dial. They have a scorched earth policy regarding any kind of criticism. And I just think, I don't know, I hope,

I feel like Janice, something was revealed this week of just the insanity of the ICE policy and the immigration policy. the tragedy of the killing, but maybe more importantly, maybe most important of all, this just horrible, brutal response on the part of the administration that seems to be, you know, issuing messages out of the White House, which would you'd normally associate with the Kremlin.

You know, at Rudyard, I did watch the video. And I would suggest that everybody, don't watch it. don't watch it. It is so graphic. It was really stunning to me to watch Christy Noem and others out within 45 minutes or so rigid, so fast or an hour, saying that the ICE agent was not at fault. How do you get the leadership that is supposed to investigate, the incident and the investigators would report to this leadership and they've already made up their mind before there was any investigation at all. I mean, that is just frankly stunning. I think as bad and as awful as the incident was, and it was equally appalling to Americans who are in whatever

we might call right now, the broad middle here, who don't make up their minds in the first, after the first tweet, was to see this behavior by the administration. You know, it's rare that I do this because I try to stay away, but the talk show universe literally, and the Twitterverse exploded with a level of anger that is hard to see. I think, and I think this is a turning point. You know, Americans do not want to see people,

and let's use the right word here, murdered in their cities. By masked men. Yeah, by mass men. It's just inconceivable that this could happen in the United States and then be confronted with their own senior leadership at, you know,

Christine Holmes Press conference was, I think, unique. Let me put it to you that way. She was out behind the seal of office, proclaiming the innocence of the ICE agent. And I don't see how this can continue without people taking to the streets. They did that night, Rudyard. It wasn't sustained. But I think for governors, for mayors, who are not firmly in the MAGA camp, there must be huge fear that this incident could happen in their own cities.

and they want ice out, frankly, of their cities. There is a crack. I mean, and by the way, this is not the only crack we saw this week for Donald Trump. You know, just really quickly, we had five senators break ranks and indicate that they will support a resolution in the Senate requiring Senate approval before there's any further military action against Venezuela. You know, there are, I mean, it's in, I have to. to say it's encouraging to see that there are limits, both in the public and in an institution

which has not covered itself with glory for the last year. That's for sure, the Senate. Well, that's a perfect segue, Janice, for our mid-show break, where we're going to say goodbye to our non-munk donors. We're going to reconvene with Janice on the other side of this break to talk about Venezuela, the fallout, this increasing fixation of the president on Venezuela's oil reserves, what this says about the future of American foreign policy. If you are a monk donor, you get the back half of Friday Focus each and every week. If you're not a donor, you've got to wait till after the weekend to get the full-length version of the show. So why don't you head over now, become a monk donor, get a whole bunch of great benefits and perks and support our mission

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