Greenland and Iran: Two Crises, One Familiar Pattern
The Trawl
Jemma Forte & Marina Purkiss
4.7 • 867 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Trawl the world lurches from crisis to farce and back again at breakneck speed.
Trump is turning Greenland into his latest imperial fixation, NATO's scrambling to respond, while here in the UK we're quietly realising the ole 'special relationship' may be less special than advertised. Meanwhile, the BBC is perfecting its long-standing talent for underreacting to events that could fracture global alliances.
As hypocrisy klaxons blare, Jemma and Marina dig into Trump’s selective outrage over Iran, the horrifying reality facing people on the ground as the country is cut off from the world, and the long, ugly Western history that helped put Iran where it is today.
Plus: billionaire resource grabs, religious justification for oil theft and an underrated post of the week and pudding from new contributors Harris Alterman and Joe Nunnink
The world might be overwhelming at the moment, and utterly enraging. But at least on The Trawl we’re screaming together.
This episode is sponsored by AG1 - the daily foundational nutrition support drink which helps you combat the winter season both mentally and physically. For a limited time, get a limited edition AG one Green Steel Tumblr plus five travel packs, and a welcome kit to get you started.
That's all worth £80, but it's free when you sign up for a monthly subscription at drinkag1.com/thetrawl
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I like data. |
| 0:02.0 | I just wonder whether or not if we needed data would they be there for us? |
| 0:06.0 | I'm not sure they would. |
| 0:07.0 | And it's Friday, Trollers. Welcome to the trawler, the podcast that doubles as a weekly group therapy session for anyone who's looked at the news and thought, as we often do. I'm Marina Perkis. |
| 0:34.9 | And I'm Gemma Forte. And honestly, Marina, you're right're right At this point We're less hosts And more facilitators Of a communal emotional Unravelling We should probably have Sort of circle of plastic chairs Perhaps a box of tissues Or maybe one of those cute therapy dogs Can we get one of those? Oh I like the sound of of a dog. Yeah. Is a dock tax deductible? |
| 0:56.4 | I think so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. So, yeah. So every week, the internet hands us a fresh stack of |
| 1:02.5 | madness and instead of processing it privately like sensible adults, we drag you all into the room |
| 1:09.2 | with us. |
| 1:11.8 | We do. |
| 1:13.0 | We do. |
| 1:14.7 | It's shared madness. |
| 1:16.5 | It really is cathartic, though. |
| 1:18.7 | Perhaps shared trauma bonding, I don't know. |
| 1:23.3 | Or like when you watch a horror film, but with your friends, it's terrifying, but at least you're all screaming and hiding behind the furniture together. |
| 1:26.3 | Fair enough. |
| 1:27.1 | It's Danny and Nicole |
| 1:28.1 | wrote, being informed feels heavy. Being uninformed feels unethical, which it does. It's so |
| 1:35.7 | overwhelming at the moment. It's so overwhelming. But remember, this is all part of the strategy. |
| 1:41.8 | Remember, what was his name? Steve Bannon, flooding the zones with shit, |
| 1:46.0 | this sort of weariness, this inability to keep up, that is part of the strategy for them to like, |
| 1:52.0 | get away with it all. So this clip from Harry Ponder's resonated with me. I don't know if anyone |
| 1:57.6 | else feels this way, but what really haunts me at night is that I am not |
... |
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