Should Donald Trump 'Make Iran Great Again'?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! ... HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!"
It was a characteristically Trumpian post from the American president on Truth Social (where else?) today which led to more fevered speculation that the US might be about to step in to topple the Iranian regime.
Protests across Iran are into their third week, and evidence of the slaughter of Iranian civilians is becoming clearer and clearer. One Iranian official told Reuters that some 2,000 protestors and security forces have now died in street clashes. Iranian media more critical of the regime says that police there have killed more than 12,000 demonstrators.
Donald Trump has already threatened to step in if the bloodshed doesn't stop - has he now made his mind up? And could America intervene without very messy, and unpredictable, consequences?
Jon and Lewis speak to Ali Hamedani, a British-Iranian journalist who is speaking to Iranians inside the country and was himself detained by the security forces in Iran, about the mood of the Iranian people and what happens next.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK Commercial Banking, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.8 | This is a global player original podcast. These are the blood-curdling sounds from the streets of Tehran, |
| 0:32.7 | and the heavy gunfire is not gunfire going into the sky. |
| 0:36.5 | It's aimed at the protesters and the death toll is |
| 0:40.6 | incredible. The Iranian authorities are admitting to 2000 dead. The numbers are probably way |
| 0:48.1 | higher than that. President Trump is said to be weighing the prospect of military action to try and destabilise |
| 0:56.6 | further the regime and aid the protesters. |
| 1:00.1 | But will that achieve the desired effect or is there a risk that that is exactly what |
| 1:05.1 | the regime wants? |
| 1:06.8 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:13.8 | The news agents. |
| 1:14.7 | It's John. |
| 1:15.2 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:22.0 | And you keep thinking it cannot get any worse than what you heard from the day before. |
| 1:27.0 | And yet the numbers now are being spoken about who may have died. |
| 1:28.3 | And the opposition are saying 12,000 people have been killed by the security services in the past three or four days. |
| 1:38.3 | That is unbelievable. |
| 1:40.3 | Iranians firing on Iranians and these are people that are just out protesting about the cost of living |
| 1:48.4 | and wanting a change of government. They want Khmerenei to go and they want to see a change in how |
| 1:57.4 | they are ruled so that they can have a better economic future. |
| 2:01.6 | And the brutality, the savagery, being meted out by Chamané's men |
| 2:08.6 | is just something that is actually quite hard to fathom. |
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