Trump backs off of those gigantic tariffs on the EU. But did he get a win on Greenland? That s the big question. We'll get to all of it first in today's Daily Wire Plus epi: President Trump's trip to Davos.
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00:02:40.000Alrighty, so President Trump did something pretty extraordinary in Davos.
00:02:44.000He gave a speech basically going directly at our European allies, telling them that they needed to up their game in terms of defense, in terms of economics, in terms of their own national sovereignty.
00:02:54.000And then he pried a deal away from Denmark with regard to Greenland.
00:02:58.000We'll get into the details of that because this makes the markets sanguine again.
00:03:02.000The markets were very concerned about the possibility that President Trump was going to hit all of Europe with these gigantic tariffs based on a desire for sovereignty over all of Greenland.
00:03:12.000Give us Greenland or we will tariff all of you.
00:03:18.000Well, European allies will claim that President Trump really didn't get much in the deal.
00:03:22.000President Trump's supporters will claim that he got a lot in the deal.
00:03:24.000We'll go through the details that we know about at the moment.
00:03:27.000However, the really big story here is how the president of the United States is calling on Europe to stand up for itself.
00:03:33.000And this, of course, follows hard on a speech given by the vice president, JD Vance, last year, in which he went to Europe and basically told them they need to reestablish their borders.
00:03:41.000They need to stop falling prey to mass migration.
00:03:44.000They need to allow their markets to actually function.
00:03:46.000And they need to move away from an economy based largely on Russian oil and heavily regulated industry that means that Europe has been stagnating for decades.
00:05:11.000That's why issues like energy, trade, immigration, and economic growth must be central concerns to anyone who wants to see a strong and united West.
00:05:22.000Now, the president clocked Europe, calling it unrecognizable, suggesting that they had moved away from the principles that once made Europe the leading center of civilization.
00:05:32.000The places where you come from can do much better by following what we're doing because certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore.
00:06:38.000We share it, but we have to keep it strong.
00:06:41.000We have to become stronger, more successful, and more prosperous than ever.
00:06:46.000We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the Dark Ages to the pinnacle of human achievement.
00:06:56.000The president also suggested, of course, that the Europeans have failed themselves in pursuing a green energy-based economy that has been a complete fail.
00:07:05.000Germany's economy particularly has suffered because of its reliance on so-called green energy, which is to say less reliable, less effective forms of energy, like, for example, windmills.
00:07:16.000The president is not a fan of the gigantic windmill farms, and he made that very clear.
00:08:23.000The whole we all, you all follow us down and you follow us up.
00:08:30.000The president also talked about immigration in the United States, how he was ending illegal immigration in the United States and blowing drug boats out of the water and some of his domestic achievements as president of the United States.
00:08:42.000But equally importantly, we're cracking down on more than $19 billion in fraud that was stolen by Somalian bandits.
00:08:51.000Can you believe that Somalia, they turned out to be higher IQ than we thought?
00:09:14.000Now, the real message the president was there to deliver, of course, that the Europeans ought to be both independent, but also recognize that they are, in fact, reliant on the United States.
00:09:24.000And so in that vein, he went after Mark Carney, who is the prime minister of Canada.
00:09:29.000Of course, the reality is that Mark Carney would not be the prime minister of Canada if it had not been, I think, for the trade war declared on Canada by the United States, leading to the elevation of Carney in the polls in the late stages of an election against Pierre Polyev.
00:09:40.000In any case, Mark Carney gave a peculiar address that we discussed a couple of days ago on the program with regard to the United States, in which he suggested that the era of American dominance was over.
00:09:53.000And Trump basically said, well, that's weird since if it weren't for us, your continent would be a little bit more at risk.
00:10:22.000Canada, Canada lives because of the United States.
00:10:25.000Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.
00:10:30.000Well, the president also dumped out the favorite line of those of us on the right, which is that if it had not been for the United States' involvement in Europe, then everybody would be speaking German and Japanese.
00:10:40.000I mean, it's slightly weird that he was saying this in Switzerland, where actually the predominant language is German, but the general point holds, obviously.
00:10:48.000And then after the war, which we won, we won it big.
00:10:52.000Without us, right now you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps.
00:11:00.000After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark.
00:11:08.000Okay, so, I mean, that history is not right.
00:11:10.000Denmark maintained control of Greenland even during the war.
00:11:13.000They signed a defense agreement that allowed the United States to essentially build up a military presence on Greenland.
00:11:21.000In any case, the president's main mission here, which was to tell the Europeans that they really need to up their game, that was a successful mission.
00:11:27.000And it seems as though a lot of people have gotten the message, as we'll see in just a moment.
00:11:31.000We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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00:12:08.000Obviously, I take my business and personal phone calls pretty seriously.
00:13:47.000And then there was all the hubbub about Greenland.
00:13:50.000So, of course, the president had threatened European-wide tariffs on basically the entire continent over the failure of Denmark to turn over Greenland to the United States, over turning over sovereignty to the United States.
00:14:01.000And of course, the United States had offered to pay Denmark for Greenland.
00:14:04.000The United States had attempted to sort of bribe the citizens of Greenland with $100,000 apiece in order to get them to sign on the dotted line and join the United States.
00:14:50.000All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland where we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians, and others in World War II.
00:15:10.000We were a powerful force then, but we are a much more powerful force now after I rebuilt the military in my first term and continue to do so today.
00:15:19.000Well, the president went on to make the case for why the United States required ownership of Greenland.
00:15:24.000It wasn't enough just to have military bases there, which, again, under current military agreements, we absolutely have and can expand.
00:15:31.000And all we're asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title, and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it.
00:15:44.000Number one, legally, it's not defensible that way, totally.
00:15:50.000And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease, which is a large piece of ice in the middle of the ocean.
00:16:02.000If there is a war, much of the action will take place on that piece of ice.
00:17:10.000You can say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember.
00:17:19.000Okay, so what are the actual contours of a deal?
00:17:22.000And the reason we're talking about a deal is because the president came out after his speech and he said that a deal had been reached, a framework for a deal had been reached.
00:17:30.000He put out a statement saying, based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rudy, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic region.
00:17:41.000The solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America and all NATO nations.
00:17:47.000Based upon the understanding, I will not be imposing the tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.
00:17:52.000Additional discussions are being had concerning the Golden Dome as it pertains to Greenland.
00:17:56.000Further information will be made available as discussion progresses.
00:18:00.000Vice President J.D. Van, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and various others, as needed, will be responsible for the negotiations.
00:18:09.000So what exactly is the deal that belayed this tariff order from the President of the United States?
00:18:15.000And again, I'm glad that we are not doing a tariff war with the Europeans over Greenland.
00:18:20.000That seemed to me a policy that was, at the very best, smashing a fly with a nuclear bomb.
00:18:25.000It was something that was driving the Europeans into the arms of the Chinese.
00:18:28.000It was causing the Europeans to reorient away from the United States on behalf of what would be at best a marginal military interest for the United States.
00:18:36.000So what exactly is the thing that we are getting?
00:18:39.000Well, in order to understand what it is that we are getting, you first have to understand the deal that we currently have with Denmark.
00:18:44.000There's a 1951 agreement relating to the defense of Greenland.
00:18:47.000It replaced a temporary wartime agreement from 1941.
00:18:54.000The original 1951 text established that the United States could establish, use, and operate specific defense areas.
00:19:01.000In other words, we could build bases in Greenland.
00:19:04.000And within those particular areas, the United States had the right to improve and generally to fit the area for military use.
00:19:09.000That meant that we could construct what we wanted in those areas, store supplies, we could put personnel on the ground in those areas.
00:19:16.000And that treaty was for an indefinite duration.
00:19:19.000So as long as NATO was still active, then the treaty remained in obligation.
00:19:26.000So today, presumably, there's an understanding under the 2004 bilateral agreement.
00:19:34.000It moved from bilateral U.S. Denmark to a trilateral one because Greenland is now involved in the negotiations because they have a level of self-government.
00:19:41.000Well, since 2004, the U.S. presence does require the continued consent of the people of Greenland, but the reality is that the people of Greenland have never objected to the United States having a military presence there.
00:19:52.000They don't want the Russians washing ashore any more than the United States does.
00:19:58.000And again, there's not a lot to be said about the expansion of U.S. military presence.
00:20:03.000Presumably, if the United States had asked, then Greenland or Denmark would have said yes.
00:20:06.000And if they'd said no, that would have been a good predicate for the United States to really put the pressure on.
00:20:11.000But there was no such conflict initiating all of this.
00:20:15.000Well, according to the UK Telegraph reporting yesterday evening, Connor Stringer, the Washington correspondent, and Joe Barnes, the Brussels correspondent, the United States will control parts of Greenland by designating them as sovereign base areas under the terms of a proposed deal agreed in Davos.
00:20:30.000Per the draft framework, which mimics Britain's agreement with Cyprus, American bases would be considered U.S. territory in the Arctic region, according to the UK Telegraph.
00:20:38.000That framework agreed between Donald Trump and Mark Rudy, the NATO Secretary General, on Wednesday evening, will ease Danish fears.
00:20:43.000The U.S. is preparing to annex the semi-autonomous region entirely.
00:20:47.000The framework would allow the United States to perform military operations, intelligence, and training, while also facilitating some local development, including potentially mining for rare earth minerals without having to seek permission from Denmark.
00:20:57.000So that seems to be the only part of the framework that is a major change from the 1951 agreement.
00:21:02.000Now, you can make the case that granting sovereignty means we no longer have to worry about any sort of threat from Greenland's government or from the Danish government about what we do in those military areas.
00:21:11.000Again, the reality is, practically speaking, that was not happening.
00:21:15.000Now, theoretically, we could get crossways with them.
00:21:19.000This is the United States obtaining sovereignty over small portions of Greenland.
00:21:23.000It is not Greenland becoming the 51st estate or turning into Trumpland.
00:21:27.000As far as the potential mining for rare earth minerals, which the president is very focused on given our dependence on Chinese rare earth minerals, unclear what extent that is going to materialize, what that actually means at this point.
00:21:41.000According to one diplomatic source, the idea was to give Trump a deal.
00:21:45.000It was seen as a creative workaround to President Trump's demands for ownership of the entire island.
00:21:52.000So the president, again, does have his eyes on some rare earth minerals in Greenland.
00:21:57.00080% of Greenland, by the way, is covered in ice.
00:22:00.000And it means that the United States presumably would not have to seek permits like planning permission.
00:22:05.000And it would make it somewhat easier for the United States to station Golden Dome there.
00:22:08.000So on that level, it's a victory for the president.
00:22:11.000Now, did we have to go about it this way?
00:22:13.000Did we have to scare the bejesus out of the Europeans in order to get them to do all of this?
00:22:19.000Or could we have simply gone to them and said, guys, we want to build some extra military bases in Greenland to fight off the predations of the Russians and Chinese.
00:22:28.000And also, we would like to make a deal with you on rare earth minerals.
00:22:33.000So it'll be interesting to see sort of what is found out over the coming days about how the negotiations actually went and what really does materialize here.
00:22:42.000Certainly it doesn't mean the United States is about to take over all of Greenland.
00:22:45.000It is, however, a more advantageous situation than we had before with regard to Greenland.
00:22:50.000The question is, what is the knock-on effect?
00:22:52.000Is this going to mean that Europe sees the United States as a robust ally that just wanted a little bit more for its money?
00:22:58.000Or does it mean that Europe is going to completely reorient away from the United States, seeing in President Trump's tactics a sort of opening to move toward Russia, to move toward China?
00:23:08.000Well, the president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, suggested this is a major wake-up call, and Europe may start to trend away from the United States.
00:23:17.000This is a wake-up call, a bigger one than we ever had.
00:23:21.000And I think that Europe is going to look at its strength, look at its weaknesses, do a big SWOT analysis and decide what do we need to do to be strong by ourselves, to be more independent, to rely on the internal trade that we do with each other, so that we can just not ignore, but at least be prepared on other plan B, just in case the normal relationship is not restored.
00:23:46.000Well, Mark Rudy, the head of NATO, taking a very different tack from Christine Lagarde, clinging to the alliance with the Americans, recognizing that it's not going to be quite so easy for the Europeans to simply shift away from the United States.
00:23:59.000So you can be assured, absolutely, if ever the U.S. will be under attack, your allies will be with you.
00:24:11.000And under your leadership, this alliance is stronger than ever.
00:24:15.000So again, I think that's the right approach by Mark Rudy.
00:24:18.000But you can see why the Europeans are feeling a little bit peevish right now.
00:24:23.000And we'll have to see how they react to everything that's going on.
00:24:26.000Are we, again, entering a period of a multipolar world order, or is the president just flexing American muscles a little bit more than usual in an attempt to get everybody back on the same pro-America, pro-Western page?
00:24:37.000That remains a bit of an open question.
00:24:39.000Well, the other subplot to Davos is that Gavin Newsom showed up.
00:24:43.000Obviously, I spoke with the California governor last week on his program.
00:24:47.000Not sure what he was doing in Davos other than running for president.
00:24:50.000There, he met up with, wait for it, Alex Soros.
00:24:56.000If you're going to claim, as Gavin Newsom is, that he is not in favor of crony capitalism, that he is not in favor of broader government centralization, if he's going to try and hit the Republicans from the right in the 2028 election, hanging out with Alex Soros, who is, again, the sort of Fredo Corleone of left-wing politics, right?
00:25:14.000He is the dumb son of a smarter father, George Soros, who is a nefarious figure in his own right for spreading far left-wing principles around the globe, including in the United States.
00:25:23.000Alex Soros has been taking photos for a very long time with pretty much every major Democratic politician and then stuffing money in their pockets.
00:25:29.000Well, apparently, Gavin Newsom stopped by the WF and met with Alex Soros, and Alex Soros put out a statement, quote, great catching up with the real star of the 2026 World Economic Forum, my friend Gavin Newsom.
00:25:40.000So glad he's here calling out world leaders for believing appeasement works when it comes to Trump.
00:25:44.000It only emboldens him to become more chaotic and destructive.
00:26:00.000If it comes to, okay, we don't want Trump to simply grab Greenland.
00:26:03.000But if the idea is that broad spectrum, your goal is to stand up to the United States, I'm not in favor of foreign countries generally standing up to the United States as like a general broad rule.
00:27:04.000And so he says, well, we should negotiate.
00:27:06.000Well, everybody here has been willing to negotiate for a year.
00:27:10.000So it had Fire and Fury signified absolutely nothing.
00:27:14.000Even by Trump's standards, I was rather curious.
00:27:17.000And there was Borish parts of it, but those were not even that consequential, including name-checking, people he likes, people he didn't like.
00:27:26.000So, you know, I just was not, honestly, it was just, I was a little disappointed.
00:27:58.000So the most you could say is insignificant, except the Europeans aren't taking it as insignificant.
00:28:02.000Newsom then went on to suggest the European leaders are very happy with him that he said that they shouldn't put on knee pads for the president.
00:28:08.000I will say that Gavin Newsom is very fond of this sort of knee pads joke.
00:28:12.000In fact, back in October of 2025, he launched a satirical merchandise campaign, selling signature knee pads on his Patriot Shop website.
00:28:20.000He actually had a pair of those knee pads framed in the background of his podcast studio.
00:28:25.000So this has been a long time running joke for Gavin Newsom.
00:28:57.000And I thought yesterday's comments by Prime Minister Kearney were effective, and Macron's comments, obviously the EU president's comments, were effective, and they helped shape, but the markets more so.
00:29:10.000So, in his opinion, it was Mark Carney making suggestions about the United States that caused President Trump to back off of his sanctions threat against the EU, not a deal that was cut.
00:29:20.000He does admit that the markets had some impact on this, which undoubtedly is true.
00:29:23.000When the markets dive, the president doesn't like it very much.
00:29:25.000But Gavin Newsom suggesting that he is fond of it when Mark Carney rips on the United States and simultaneously makes time with China is bizarre.
00:29:33.000Him suggesting that Emmanuel Macron is some sort of world leader in terms of morality, while the French have been making time with the Iranians for years, is relatively insane.
00:29:43.000And I think you can disagree with a lot of what President Trump has been doing with regard to Greenland.
00:29:47.000I think the American people, broadly speaking, do.
00:29:49.000I've disagreed with the president's policy prescriptions in some areas with regard to grabbing Greenland.
00:29:53.000But that doesn't mean that I'm happy when Mark Carney suggests that the post-American order is going to be a positive place.
00:30:01.000And it's strange for an American to believe that a post-American order is going to be a positive place or that European leaders ought to be ripping on the United States and moving away from the United States at speed.
00:30:12.000It's one thing for Gavin Newsom to make the case that the president is alienating our allies needlessly.
00:30:16.000It's another thing for him to say that those European allies are doing the right thing by ripping on the United States and moving toward China, which is what Mark Carney has been doing.
00:30:23.000Well, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessons then went after Gavin Newsom.
00:30:27.000By the way, all this really just does elevate Gavin Newsome.
00:30:30.000Gavin Newsom is playing a very smart political game here, just on a political, raw level.
00:30:34.000What he is doing by going to Davos and earning the ire of the Trump administration and getting members of the Trump administration to attack him is elevating himself far above other Democratic candidates who don't get mentioned nearly as often by members of the Trump administration.
00:30:48.000And again, the Trump administration is not in high order right now in terms of approval ratings.
00:30:52.000This is smart politicking by Newsom, as much as I disagree with his principles on a lot of things.
00:30:57.000The man is not stupid when it comes to playing the game.
00:30:59.000Well, here was Scott Besson dunking on him.
00:31:02.000Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman, meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris.
00:31:13.000He's here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros.
00:31:19.000And Davos is a perfect place for a man who, when everyone else was on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church, he was having $1,000 a night meals at the French laundry.
00:31:32.000And I'm sure the California people won't forget that.
00:31:35.000And again, that is a pretty robust dunk from Scott Besson.
00:31:39.000But let's be clear, Scott Besant is also not going to be the nominee in 2028, presumably.
00:31:43.000And so elevating Gavin Newsom as sort of the bet noir of the Trump administration, that's the game Newsom is playing.
00:31:49.000And so far, just on a raw political level, that is succeeding.
00:31:52.000Again, it's very clever what Newsom is doing.
00:31:55.000What Newsom is doing right now is he is posing as a political moderate while earning the ire of the Trump administration so that he appears to be in with his own base.
00:32:04.000It is a very smart tactical move, even if I think, again, that Gavin Newsom seems to be willing to say pretty much anything to anybody, depending on who he is talking to at the time.
00:32:13.000Well, all of this came to a head when Gavin Newsom was apparently informed at the 11th hour that his talk with Fortune at USA House in Davos was canceled.
00:32:22.000According to Politico, he had been invited to speak on Wednesday at an event sponsored by USA House, which for the first time was recognized by the U.S. government as the country's official headquarters in Davos.
00:32:31.000But apparently, an organizer told his office they'd opted not to include any U.S. officials in the talk focused on CEOs and other business leaders.
00:32:39.000A Newsom administration official accused the USA House under the auspices of the U.S. government of bowing to political pressure from the State Department.
00:32:47.000They said the governor is still welcome in the venue.
00:32:51.000This is, again, Newsom pretending that he basically is a co-equal with Trump and they're punching at each other.
00:32:57.000That is the game that Gavin Newsom is playing.
00:32:59.000Again, on a broader international level, the president also had comments while he was in Davos about a wide variety of international situations.
00:33:50.000And because we did that, we were able to make peace.
00:33:52.000If we didn't do that, I would say, Jared and Steve, if we didn't do that, there was no chance of making peace because the countries I just named and other countries could have never signed off.
00:34:08.000The bully was Iran, the bully of the Middle East.
00:34:10.000They used to call it for years they were the bully of the Middle East.
00:34:13.000They're not the bully of the Middle East anymore.
00:34:17.000Well, it's unclear what's going to happen from here on with regard to Iran.
00:34:21.000The foreign minister of Iran was granted an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to promote his lies, suggesting that they are going to basically shoot anybody who now participates in what they are calling a resistance.
00:34:34.000According to the foreign minister, quote, the protests began peacefully and were recognized as legitimate by the Iranian government.
00:34:40.000They suddenly turned violent when foreign and domestic terrorist actors entered the scene.
00:34:43.000So blocking communication among organizers of the rioters and terrorists was an imperative.
00:34:47.000So, again, the claim is going to be that it was, what, the CIA and Mossad that was responsible for all of this.
00:34:55.000According to the foreign minister, the people on the ground were targeting police and civilians alike.
00:35:00.000Officers were shot, burned, and even beheaded.
00:35:02.000Public buses, hospitals, ambulances, fire stations, health infrastructure, chain stores, even mosques were deliberately destroyed to maximize casualties and impede emergency response.
00:35:10.000The majority of those killed were police officers and ordinary civilians.
00:35:14.000Contrary to the lies being peddled abroad, all unarmed victims have been officially recognized as martyrs.
00:35:18.000This means every affected family will receive full support, including the same compensation and benefits as fallen police officers.
00:35:24.000The violence on our streets has subsided and normal life has returned nationwide.
00:35:28.000Well, that's weird since the internet is still shut down.
00:35:30.000The Wall Street Journal editorial board put out a piece pointing out that actually none of this is true, that basically they printed this simply so that they could identify the lies being told by the Iranian regime.
00:35:42.000The president may be considering military options still.
00:35:46.000It would be very difficult, I think, for the president to not consider some sort of major move against Iran, considering he drew a red line, the mass murder of protesters.
00:35:54.000Iran didn't just cross the red line, they jumped over it with both feet, shooting protesters by perhaps the tens of thousands in the streets in Iran.
00:36:02.000According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump is still pressing AIDS for what he terms decisive military options.
00:36:08.000The discussions are happening while the U.S. sends an aircraft carrier and jet fighters to the Middle East.
00:36:12.000Those deployments may be the start of a broader buildup that would give President Trump the firepower to strike Iran should he choose to use them.
00:36:20.000So a revised suite of options are being created for the president, including some that would seek to push the regime out of power.
00:36:28.000How much can be done with air power is really the big question.
00:36:32.000The White House has to grapple with whether the administration is prepared to carry out a sustained military campaign that might last weeks or months should the protesters in Iran again take to the streets and appeal to President Trump for protection.
00:36:42.000However, suffice it to say that if the president really does not take significant action against the Iranian government in the aftermath of telling the protesters to stay out in the street and, quote, help is on the way, that would not only be disastrous for the protesters in Iran, it would in fact be a signal to places like China that going after, say, Taiwan would not be reacted to by the United States with any sense of strength or alacrity.
00:37:06.000I very much doubt the president is going to do nothing in Iran.
00:37:09.000Iran, for its part, is trying to threaten the United States.
00:37:12.000Here is the Iranian Armed Forces Spokesperson General Shakarchi promising retaliation against the United States or its assets in the region should the United States strike.
00:37:22.000We do not pay attention to Trump's bluster.
00:37:25.000He knows that if any hand is raised to assault our leader, we will not only cut off that hand decisively and courageously, and this is not just rhetoric, but we will set their world on fire.
00:37:37.000We will strip them of any security and leave no safe place for them.
00:37:42.000Now, again, Iran made those same sorts of threats to Israel during the 12-day war.
00:37:47.000And suffice it to say, those threats did not really come true in large amount.
00:37:53.000Because, again, if the Iranian government wishes to take on the United States military in true fashion, that will not go well for them.
00:38:01.000According to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, there's a strong case, obviously, for regime change in Iran.
00:38:08.000That case for regime change goes back decades.
00:38:11.000We'll have to see whether that is effectuated.
00:38:13.000At the same time, the president is expected today in Davos to hold a sign-lined signing of his board of peace agreement.
00:38:21.000So the board of peace was supposed to be part and parcel of the re-governance of Gaza.
00:38:25.000A board of peace run by the president of the United States that is expected to allow for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip.
00:38:32.000The list of people who have been invited is bizarre, to say the least.
00:38:35.000It includes not only some of the most robustly pro-Hamas actors in the Middle East, like Qatar and Turkey.
00:38:42.000Also, apparently, it includes Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the new board of peace, which seems kind of strange.
00:38:49.000Vladimir Putin suggested that after the Ukraine war ends, perhaps that will happen.
00:38:54.000So I guess he thinks that he's going to leverage the president into ending American support for Ukraine or forcing Ukraine into final concessions so that Putin will join a board of peace that's basically meaningless in the Gaza Strip.
00:39:06.000Considering Russia's special relations with the Palestinian people, I think that we could contribute $1 billion to the Board OF Peace from the assets frozen by the previous administration, and the remaining funds from the funds frozen in the United States could be used to rebuild territories that suffered during hostility.
00:39:37.000once we signed a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
00:39:37.000And the remaining funds from the United States.
00:39:41.000We're discussing this with the representatives of the U.S. administration.
00:39:47.000Okay, well, what that amounts to, if you shorten that, is an attempt at bribery, presumably.
00:39:51.000The idea would be that if the Ukraine war ends and the United States forces Ukraine to the table, that Russia will then get its unfrozen assets and they will take those assets and pour it into the Gaza Strip in some way.
00:40:02.000Again, having the Russians involved in the Gaza Strip is just reconstituting Hamas.
00:40:07.000Russia, Turkey, Qatar, again, these are countries that were very much willing to facilitate funding for Hamas and turn that area into a terrorist hotbed.
00:40:15.000Again, President Trump, for his part, suggested the people being invited are people who will get the job done.
00:40:21.000I beg to differ when you look at that list.
00:40:52.000I think I don't know of anybody that hasn't accepted.
00:40:55.000I mean, apparently, some of the people who have been invited and accepted, apparently, that would include not just Vladimir Putin, but also Lukashenko in Belarus.
00:42:10.000And we're going to know, Jared, over the next two or three days, certainly over the next three weeks, whether or not they're going to do it.
00:42:17.000If they don't do it, they'll be blown away very quickly.
00:42:21.000Well, we'll see if that is the case, because the question is, who's going to be doing the blowing away?
00:42:26.000Will the IDF actually be given the ability to go and do full-scale operations in the Gaza Strip again, if, in fact, Hamas does not disarm?
00:42:33.000Because Hamas has no intention of disarming.
00:42:35.000Many of the talks so far have included getting rid of things like rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, but not getting rid of small arms, which, of course, is the way that you control the population in the Gaza Strip because you can shoot people with AK-47.
00:42:46.000Meanwhile, the president suggested while he was at Davos that both Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky are stupid if they don't get a deal done.
00:42:53.000Again, I'm just waiting on this particular deal.
00:42:55.000I'm just waiting for Vladimir Putin to show any flexibility whatsoever.
00:42:59.000We have yet to see any flexibility, one iota, from Vladimir Putin.
00:43:32.000I mean, again, it is not a matter of will when it comes to Ukraine.
00:43:35.000It's a matter of what people are willing to sacrifice.
00:43:37.000And so far, the answer from the Russians has been no.
00:43:39.000And all this ties into, again, what is the broader American orientation toward the world?
00:43:44.000Is it America first or is it America alone?
00:43:48.000Is it a multipolar world order or is it an America-led world order where we are more muscular in pursuit of our own interests and we expect more from our allies in helping us out with those interests?
00:43:57.000That remains the big question coming out of Davos.
00:44:01.000I'm not sure that the question has been fully answered at this point in time.
00:44:04.000Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to progress on the executive level, putting forward excellent executive orders, moving forward on the regulatory level.
00:44:13.000Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, of course, is now the director of the National Institutes of Health and was previously tenured professor at the School of Medicine at Stanford University, among other superlatives.
00:44:23.000Dr. Bhattacharya, thanks so much for joining the program.
00:44:29.000So let's talk about what the administration just did with regard to fetal tissue research.
00:44:36.000Yeah, so human fetal tissue research is, I mean, obviously it's been quite a controversial topic for a long time.
00:44:43.000The NIH had a big debate in the early 2000s over this.
00:44:49.000The tissue itself is often derived from aborted fetal tissue.
00:44:55.000So, you know, someone has an abortion and then some researcher goes and buys the tissue and then uses it for research projects.
00:45:05.000During Trump won, the policy was that if, so there's two parts of the NIH, there's intramural, researchers that directly work for the NIH, and there's extramural, all the people that the NIH funds, all in the universities.
00:45:17.000Trump won banned intramural use of aborted fetal tissue, human fetal tissue.
00:45:26.000We're saying not just the intramural research, but all of the support for the NIH has had, especially during the Biden administration, for human fetal tissue research more broadly outside in universities, this derived from abortions is banned.
00:45:45.000Sorry, Brad, just there's one, a couple of nuances really important here.
00:45:48.000One is that if there's tissue from a miscarriage, not specifically from an abortion, that's okay.
00:45:55.000The reason that's important, there are some research uses, like for instance, understanding how fetal lungs develop, that's useful to know, to have that.
00:46:02.000So there's some, we've been tracking this very carefully, and the use of human fetal tissue in research has been declining pretty sharply.
00:46:09.000Even after the Biden administration sort of reversed the ban, the amount of money that the NIH has spent on human fetal tissue during the Biden administration research has declined very sharply.
00:46:20.000And so what's happened is there's all these like big advances where you can use alternate methods that you no longer need human fetal tissue.
00:46:28.000A lot of the angst and fights over this that happened over in the early 2000s.
00:46:32.000I think now that there's like better technology, it's really that the point is that there's no scientific harm to this.
00:46:41.000We're still going to be able to do the science we need to make it for human health, for advancing health of babies and all that, while at the same time getting rid of this sort of like use of aborted human fetal tissue, which so many people, including me, find morally abhorrent.
00:47:00.000So let's talk about the scientific value here.
00:47:03.000So you say, obviously, and so does the administration, that the use of aborted fetal tissue is now largely unnecessary.
00:47:09.000We have alternative methods for doing this.
00:47:11.000Obviously, opponents of the policy are suggesting that something terrible is happening scientifically, that research that would have gone, that would have been happening is no longer going to be done, that there will be medical gains that we have to forego because of all of this.
00:47:25.000What is the scientific case that that's false?
00:47:27.000Well, first, I would ask them to look at the actual policy, right?
00:47:30.000So someone who's had a miscarriage and then wants to do a meaningful thing with that, and they donate the tissue from the miscarriage to science, that's still allowed, right?
00:47:45.000So the only ban is on you have an abortion specifically to terminate the baby, and then the tissue then gets sold.
00:48:01.000The other thing I point out is, Ben, is that if you look at the actual data on the use of NIH funds for this, during the Biden administration, there was a sharp drop in spending on human fetal tissue research.
00:48:14.000And the reason is very simple, is because of the advances in alternatives to the human fetal tissue.
00:48:20.000For instance, induced polariprin stem cells, folks, for many uses, you can produce tissues that are comparable or better without having the sort of moral qualms.
00:48:32.000And Ben, if I make another sort of public health case about this, and during the pandemic, there were vaccines, for instance, the Johnson-Johnson vaccine, not an mRNA vaccine, but another technology that was produced using human basically the embryonic stem cells.
00:48:54.000I heard from so many people during the pandemic that, you know, Catholics and others who had qualms about using this technology because they didn't want to be gaining from what their moral system said was an illicit fruit of the poison tree, right?
00:49:12.000And I completely sympathize with this.
00:49:14.000In public health and in science, we should seek to produce knowledge and products that are as widely available for everybody.
00:49:24.000If there are large numbers of people with moral systems that say, well, look, if you don't go down this line and use research, do research with aborted human fetal tissue, I'm not going to participate in it.
00:49:37.000I'm not going to, if it's a vaccine or whatever it is, I'm not going to use it.
00:49:41.000Well, what good was the research if a large part of the population feels ethically bound not to participate or use the products of that research?
00:49:49.000Well, that's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya over at NIH.
00:49:52.000Obviously, he is deeply involved in every aspect of Trump administration policy, ensuring that the best of science is brought to bear, despite the left-wing media trying to claim that science is somehow on the back burner in the administration.
00:50:04.000Dr. Bhattacharya ensures that is not the case.
00:50:06.000Dr. Bhattacharya, really appreciate the time.
00:51:49.000What matters to you now, mistress of lies you nephew, the sword of a high king, how many lives must be lost before you accept the power you are born to wield?
00:52:09.000Still clinging to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.