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American Prestige

News - Syria Offensive Against SDF, Israel Moves on Rafah, Trump and Greenland

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, News, Politics

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get all of our content. While much of America endures an Arctic freeze, Danny and Derek bring to you scorching hot headlines. This week: renewed fighting breaks out between the Syrian government and the SDF as Damascus pushes across the Euphrates and ceasefires collapse (1:39); Israel plans to raze Rafah and construct controlled “humanitarian cities” as a template for postwar Gaza (10:32); Trump hints at striking Iran amid U.S. force movements (14:26); a Cambodian NGO accuses the Thai military of demolishing homes in disputed border villages with Cambodia (17:31); Japan’s prime minister is dissolving parliament and calling a snap election to capitalize on high approval ratings (19:45); heavy fighting breaks out in Sudan’s North Kordofan as the RSF seeks to block a government offensive toward Darfur (22:17); Somalia reaches a new defense cooperation agreement with Qatar (24:18); the EU is reportedly offering Ukraine a rapid partial membership as part of postwar security guarantees (26:27); attendees at Davos discuss a Ukraine reconstruction plan (28:44); Portugal’s far-right Chega candidate reaches the presidential runoff (31:10); the Trump administration is exploring a Maduro-style operation in Cuba (32:47); Trump threatens and then backs off tariffs over Greenland after talks with NATO (35:22); Mark Carney’s Davos speech on the collapse of the rules-based order gains attention (41:01); there is renewed speculation about Havana syndrome following reports the U.S. acquired a suspected energy weapon (43:00); and Trump formally launches his “Board of Peace,” with an unclear mandate and membership (45:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to American Prestige.

0:02.7

To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at Americanprostagepod.com.

0:08.3

Find the link in our show notes.

0:13.0

That's kind of conversation to your soul.

0:18.7

That's conversation.

0:55.2

To your soul. And. I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade Derek Davison. And we are excited to bring you the news. But before we do, Derek, I don't know, but there has been some disinformation out there with people saying that you do not get a discount if you subscribe annually. But let me just clear it up. If you subscribe annually, you do get a discount instead of paying $5 a month,

1:04.5

you get to pay $50 a year, which is a savings of $10, which is 16%, I think, according to the... Who said this? What math challenge person is... I'd seen it around the internet. I don't

1:10.0

know how that 16% precisely works out, but

1:12.2

that's what it says in our website. But you do get also, there is a $60 or more per year tier.

1:20.0

And if you subscribe to that, you also get a one-year digital subscription to the nation magazine.

1:24.3

So maybe they were referring to that. So again, $50 for an annual subscription,

1:29.2

$60 for an annual subscription with the Nation magazine digital subscription. So I just wanted to clear

1:36.4

that up. You know, you hate to see misinformation travel, but this is the world we live in, Derek.

1:41.9

It's really terrible.

1:45.0

Yeah, shut down the internet. Shut down the internet. It was a failed experiment.

1:50.5

All right, let's jump in. Let's start with Syria, where conflict has erupted between the government and the SDF, the Syrian Democratic forces.

1:58.6

This has been a fairly quick moving situation.

2:02.4

There have been a couple of attempts at a ceasefire that I'm not sure have held.

2:06.8

The first ones definitely didn't hold.

2:08.5

And the second one, I'm still a little unsure about.

2:11.5

But last week, I talked about this with Matt, the Syrian government was moving into Kurdish,

2:20.9

neighborhoods with significant Kurdish presence in the city of Aleppo that had been held by

...

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