What A Day - Iran, Greenland, And Trump's Ego

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

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. likely hit close to zero in 2025, and Elon Musk’s controversial AI bot, Grok, finds a new home inside… the Pentagon?Show Notes:Check out Pod Save The World – https://tinyurl.com/4n6y99muCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Wednesday, January 14th. I'm Jane Koston, 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 Paul and you want to avoid an indictment, how about you go to Jean Peerone and say, 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. Congratulations, Senator Kramer for approving Jerome Powell's point.

On today's show, net migration in the U.S. 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. In Iran, the street demands the end of the regime, spews contempt for their leaders, and declares this the final battle. 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 his standard, this is a TV season finale. not a world event thing on the subject. Is it a bad question?

This morning that help is on the way for protesters. What did you mean by that? What kind of help? You're going to have to figure that one out. I'm sorry. Meanwhile, in Greenland, Prime Minister Jens Frederick Nielsen joined Denmark's Prime Minister, Meta Fredrickson, in a joint news conference

and said that again, Greenland does not want to be part of the United States. 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. 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 premiere of Greenland said today, we prefer to stay with Denmark. Do you see that as the final word? Who said that? 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. 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 U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor under the Obama administration and the co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. Ben, welcome back to Water Day. I love being on Water Day. I really do. Thank you. I mean, it's just like we get through a lot in a short period of time.

A surprising amount. Speaking of which, today, Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Mark Oribio 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? Well, the United States seems absolutely intent on taking Greenland. I think we should believe Donald Trump. He's come back to this again and again and again.

He seems to have caught the conquest bug, which is never good for an autocratic leader. So it 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 subsidize 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're tired of being colonized, the answer to that is not to just invite

the biggest empire in to colonize you. Right. 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. 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, 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. 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 Marker 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.

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. 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. 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. Like, 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. It's 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.

big chunk of territory. I think underneath that, there are a bunch of, you know, 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. In the Arctic. In the Arctic. 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. 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 true social, quote, Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions, save the names of the killers and abusers. they 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 and Cuba,

and we've seen this again in other historical instances. George H.W. Bush and Iraq. Exactly. Like, the Kurds, it doesn't go great. But, like, let's say Trump does get involved. What would U.S. involvement in Iran actually look like? I mean, first of all, like he's been saying this for days. Right.

And they've been protesting and they've been getting slaughtered for days. and the estimates range from 2000 up to 20,000. Look, I think what we know is that Trump is the kind of guy that likes to, you know, bomb countries, and bomb a lot of them, but not get, you know, really involved with, like, ground troops, right? And so I think what he might try to do is decapitate the regime, you know, 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 like 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 Iranian regime. That's possible, I suppose, but it leads 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, even 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. 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 tax terms, who do you think would be most likely to fill in that power vacuum besides the IRGC? Yeah, I mean, first of all, 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 Chaminet, the Supreme Leader, fleets the country or something, or he's ousted. And you have kind of the more moderate remnants of the regime. There's some people there that, you know, like the former President Rahani or the Leranjani family that might try. to emerge as kind of brokers to negotiate some transition away from the regime to something

different that's not, you know, 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 armed 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. experience, which includes mistakes, like when we were in the Obama administration and Muammar Kordafi 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. Right. And they showed up there to run the country and they ran nothing. Right. And Palavi has not been there in nearly 50 years. 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 would the IRGC listen to Palavi? 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 don't think they want the United States kind of like de facto run Iran via like the Shah, 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, it does not feel like Putin would be like, I'll help. Like, what? how would Iran's allies react to American involvement? 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 a very reliable friend. Let's just put that way. That said, the Chinese buy somewhere like 90 percent of Iran's oil. Like China and Russia do have significant interest inside of Iran. And, you know, 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 U.S. is trying to

like install some regime. When these places become, you know, kind of violent, quasi-failed states, they become often proxy wars. And I could see a China, Russia backing the IRGC, you know. And their interests there are just making sure the United States has not become like 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 like pick off Maduro in a special operation. Like this is different stakes, you know, that we be messing around with. And I just think our capacity to control events inside of Iran is going to be

quite limited. Ben, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks. 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 news 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. 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

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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, 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 Delete Me 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 Delete Me can help. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe

plan when you go to join DeleteMe.com slash WOD and use promo code Wad to checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join deleteme.com slash wad and enter code Wad at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash Wad code Wad. Here's what else we're following today. Headalines. If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are going to see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act. Last November, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders warned that letting the Affordable Care Act's enhanced subsidies expire would send premium 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. 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 tax 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 U.S. 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 U.S. is in a armed conflict with drug cartels,

acclaimed 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 a civilian would still violate the laws of war. I mean, the U.S. military's own commander's handbook makes it very clear, quote, honor prohibits perfidy. But on second thought, I guess that explains why this administration didn't see a problem with it. Very soon, we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department.

Long overdue. Secretary of War slash little boy, Pete Hegsa said Monday that Elon Musk's AI chatbot, GROC, will be integrated into the Pentagon's network alongside Google's AI tools. That's right. The nation's most closely guarded secrets will be processed by GROC, 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 GROC, 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. Grog has since restricted image generation and editing to paid users, because nothing stands between perverts and pedophiles

and their images like $8 a month. Hegsa said that GROC 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 U.S. was likely close to zero or negative in 2025.

According to estimates published by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan policy think tank. The Trump administration's xenophobic and nationalist agenda is hard at work. And though ICE arrests and deportations are 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, quote, 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 unsyximate. certain. 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 nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week. In its own estimate, the government suggests net migration was positive in 2025. And that's the news. 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 into Crooked's Foreign Policy Podcast, Pots 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 Rosian, an Iranian-American journalist who was wrong fully detained in Iran 10 years ago. Tune in to Pots 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.

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 humanized careers at ICE through storytelling and lived experiences. Like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Jane Koston, 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 Four and Chris Alport. Our producer is Caitlin Blummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had a production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Burke.

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