Jack Power and Jack Horgan-Jones join Pat Leahy to assess a dramatic week in which the transatlantic alliance took a further battering from US president Donald Trump and his demands to acquire Greenland.

After Trump used a rambling address at Davos to reveal he would not use force but would 'remember' a failure to hand the vast territory over, EU leaders may now wait and see. Will threatened tariffs become a reality? There are two member state heads in particular whose response to whatever Trump does next should be watched.

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Harry McGee, Ellen Coyne and Mark Paul join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

·       The Minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI), Niamh Smyth, met with executives from social media company X on Friday over concerns about their Grok app. The app has been in the headlines because of its ability to produce non-consensual intimate images. Current law bans sharing of intimate images but does not appear to criminalise generating them – what is the Government’s next step?

·       The level of energy needed to power a data centre was laid bare this week. An internal Government document showed that a single facility in west Dublin consumes 10 times the electricity of a nearby pharmaceutical plant employing 2,000 people, equivalent to enough power for 200,000 homes.

·       And more ‘psychodrama’ for the Tories this week as Robert Jenrick, the Conservative shadow justice secretary, defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK after being sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

·       The US and Denmark battle for control of Greenland, Inside Politics veteran Jennifer Bray is releasing a book (and it’s rather good), a reader’s letter questions how dog-friendly we should be as a society, and who is next for Donald Trump’s crosshairs?

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Despite global turmoil, the focus of Irish politics in 2026 is set to remain on matters close to home. Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh to identify the main challenges facing the Government this year, particularly those on the desks of Minister for Housing James Brown, Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and how global events could impinge on those domestic affairs.

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US president Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland, asserting strategic and security needs but also a 'psychological need' to take over the vast, frozen island from Denmark. So how do Greenlanders themselves feel about this idea? Derek Scally is in Greenland's capital Nuuk to find out. He talks to Hugh Linehan about a people whose passion for total independence may have been catalysed by Trump's covetousness.

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Jack Horgan-Jones and Ellen Coyne join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

·       The long-anticipated EU-Mercosur trade deal was provisionally approved on Friday, despite the opposition of Ireland, France and three other countries. The deal has been immensely unpopular in Irish political life for a long time, thanks largely to efforts by the farming lobby. But there is now a sense that some figures in the European Commission are disappointed the Government did not make the case for the economic upsides of the deal.

·       Taoiseach Micheál Martin was in China this week on a four-day visit. Trade was also high on the agenda there, with China eager to import more high-quality food from Ireland. Human rights were mentioned in passing, and there was condemnation by the Taoiseach of Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime in Venezuela, the irony seemingly lost on the Fianna Fáil leader given the country he was visiting.

·       And the Taoiseach’s party colleague, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless, wants to ditch the one-bed en suites as the Government looks to move towards a co-living model involving communal space for university accommodation. A bathroom of one’s own is a luxury students can go without.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

·       The Saipan film reopens old wounds for Kevin Kilbane, Seán Moncrieff can’t throw away all those old electronic cables, and boycotting Doonbeg is the least we can do to oppose Donald Trump’s appetite for war.

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After the weekend’s US airstrikes on Venezuela, and arrest of its president Nicolás Maduro by US special forces, The Irish Times’ China Correspondent Denis Staunton has been pondering what it means for the international order, and territorial disputes around the world.

“Events in Venezuela have emboldened Trump and we’ve seen him step up his rhetoric around Greenland” he told the Inside Politics podcast.

Donald Trump has held no punches in expressing his desire for the US to take over Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

On Sunday, the US president told reporters Washington needed Greenland for “national security” with White House officials suggesting military operations to achieve it aren’t off the table.

Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen said: “If the United States were to choose to attack another Nato country, then everything would come to an end”.

And in the Irish Times’ Global Briefing newsletter, Denis writes “If the past year is anything to go by, there is no reason to believe that Europe will put up any kind of fight, military or otherwise”.

What other dominos at play within the international order could fall in the wake of Trump’s arrest of Nicolás Maduro?

Inside Politics is presented by Hugh Linehan and produced by Declan Conlon, with JJ Vernon on sound. 

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For part two of our festive ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode Hugh Linehan is joined on today’s Inside Politics podcast by Jack Horgan Jones, Cormac McQuinn and Ellen Coyne.

In this round they tackle listener questions on a border poll, citizen’s assemblies and why we keep on calling our country ‘the State’.

Thanks to everyone who listened to the podcast in 2025. From all of us on the Inside Politics team we wish you a very happy new year.

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This episode was first published in July 2025.

You can tell an awful lot about a society by who it labels a genius. You can also learn from who it excludes from that category, who it enables and what it is prepared to tolerate from them. The tortured poet, the rebellious scientist, the monstrous artist, or indeed the tech disruptor.

All of these archetypes feature in The Genius Myth, the new book by the journalist, author and podcaster Helen Lewis. She joins Hugh to talk about so-called geniuses, from Elon Musk to The Beatles, the modern influence of concepts like IQ, and what it takes to be a political genius.

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Hugh is joined by Jack Horgan Jones, Cormac McQuinn and Ellen Coyne for part one of our traditional festive AMA. This year listeners asked about the presidential nomination process, the influence of party leaders, the need for a dedicated Minister for Defence and the stability of centrist politics.

Wishing all our listeners a very Happy Christmas.

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Dr Kevin Cunningham of TUD is one of Ireland’s most insightful political scientists and pollsters. At the Inside Politics live show in early December he joined Hugh, Pat, Cormac and Ellen on stage at the IFI to talk about Irish voters. What are the issues that really motivate them? Are they driven more by pragmatism or ideology? Today's episode is an excerpt of that conversation.

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