The Curse of Davos – plus: The future without America?

Oh God, What Now?

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

• Get the latest reaction on Trump’s climbdown from Weekly Wrap-Up on The Bunker with Raf Behr and Andrew Harrison. “If you’re not at the table,” said Canada’s Mark Carney, “You’re on the menu.” Trump’s demented speech in Davos leaves the world agog. Beyond the President’s tantrums and on-off attempts to extort Greenland, are Britain and the EU ready to live in a world where America is a predatory enemy? Are European leaders just sucking his abuse up – or are their subtle pushbacks working? We look at the shocking end of 80 years of Atlanticism and wonder what comes next for a Brexit-weakened Britain. Oh, and Jason admits that years ago he did a “please have my Nobel Peace Prize” too. No better than Trump, this guy. ESCAPE ROUTES • Zöe recommends the Jean-Marc Vallée movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon. • Jason has been reading Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela by William Neuman • Jonn has been reading Precipice by Robert Harris. • Ros recommends Michael Crick’s biography of Farage, One Party After Another. www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Ros Taylor with Jason Hazeley, Zöe Grünewald and Jonn Elledge. Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. https://www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:59.7	Terms apply. Hello, it's Andrew Harrison here. Continuing his terrorist hate campaign against
1:04.8	oh God what now, Donald Trump waited until after we'd recorded this show before canceling his threats to tariff the shit out of anybody who disagreed with this plan to take over Greenland. So this episode of Oh God, What Now takes the longer view of the breakdown of the relationship between the US and Europe. However, Raphael Bear and I react to the climb down on today's weekly wrap-up from the bunker, which is out now.
1:28.7	There's a link in the show notes.
1:29.2	Raf's here.
1:30.3	Raf, quick summary.
1:34.1	All week in Davos, it's been definite invasions and tariffs everywhere.
1:38.4	And then suddenly there's magically a deal on the table between Trump and Mark Rutter.
1:43.7	What has this week in Davos at the World Economic Forum done to the NATO-US setup? Does it even exist anymore?
1:45.8	It definitely still exists because all of the signatories to the NATO Treaty apart from the US
1:52.0	really, really wants it to exist. And there's sufficient momentum behind the whole international
1:58.0	apparatus to try and carry on and salvage something while Donald Trump
2:02.6	tries to burn it down.
2:03.6	But I do think there has been a fundamental shift probably in a psychology of a lot of European
2:09.8	leaders.
	...

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