Iran Kills Hundreds of Protesters – The Tuesday AM Quickie 1/13/26
Finally saw Bugonia. It was good! I recommend it and the 2003 movie it’s based on, Save the Green Planet!, which is exceptional. Corey’s back tomorrow, see you next week. - Whitney
ON THE SHOW TODAY
1/13: Sam and Emma are in the studio today, and their guest is Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
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Today you’ll read about Trump dithering about Iran, hundreds of thousands of Americans going without health insurance, and how AI is helping some monkeys roam free.
THE BIG NEWS
Iran Kills Hundreds of Protesters, Shuts Down Internet, Phones
Iran has killed hundreds of people since protests against the government began on Dec. 28, according to the AP, BBC and Drop Site News. News outlets put the number of dead between 544 and 690 on Monday; this morning, the BBC reported that an official said the death count was up to 2,000. Precise figures are impossible to verify given that the government has shut down the internet and phone lines. As of yesterday afternoon, the country’s communications had been blacked out for days. By this morning, some international calls were making it through and some people had been able to get online via Starlink.
Trump initially said that the US would attack Iran if the Iranian government killed any protesters, a jaw-dropping thing to say after one of his federal agents, Jonathan Ross, executed Renee Good in broad daylight last week. Trump’s fellow war criminal, Philadelphia’s own Benjamin Netanyahu né Mileikowsky, had some similar cognitive dissonance to offer, saying Israel “strongly condemns the mass slaughter of innocent civilians.”
After his military threat, Trump on Monday announced new tariffs against countries that do business with Iran, saying on social media that he would immediately impose 25 percent levies “on any and all business being done” with the US. “This Order is final and conclusive.” According to The Guardian, China, India and the United Arab Emirates are the top export destinations for Iran.
Iran has offered to hold talks over its nuclear program, which prompted some of the sanctions that tanked the country’s economy. That’s what protesters initially took to the streets to decry; protests have since grown to challenge the nation’s theocracy. But Trump can’t decide if he’ll “try diplomacy,” as the Wall Street Journal says Vice President JD Vance and other top aides want, or if he’ll just start dropping bombs, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said is one of his “many options.” According to the WSJ, he’ll meet with his cabal today to decide. Other options include “launching cyber attacks” and “boosting antiregime accounts online.”