Davos 2026: Day 4, with Stacey Vanek Smith

This transcript has been generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio.

Robin Pomeroy: Welcome to Radio Davos coming to you on Day 4 of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026.

It's Thursday, the 22nd of January, day four. Give us a few minutes and we'll give you the rundown of what's happening in Davos today.

On any podcast app or the Forum Live app, this is Radio Davos.

I'm Robin Pomeroy, and I'm recording this actually at the heart of the Congress Centre - you will hear some background noise. And joining me to look ahead to Day 4 is podcaster Stacey Vanek Smith. Hi Stacey, how are you?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Hi Robin, I'm very happy to be here.

Robin Pomeroy: Tell us what you do in the world of podcasting.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I co-host a podcast from Business Week called Everybody's Business and I am a senior writer for Business Week.

Robin Pomeroy: Great podcast go and check that out co-hosted by?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Max Chafkin.

Robin Pomeroy: He's great too, give him my love. We're going to look forward to day four on Thursday. There's actually lots of really interesting things to talk about, but let's look back on yesterday when Donald Trump was in town. You're an American, he's your president.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes.

Robin Pomeroy: It was a mixture, it was a very long speech, he seemed to go off script quite a lot. A lot of it was about geopolitical issues, Greenland, and a lot of it also seemed to be aimed at domestic consumption, particularly about the economy and about interest rates and that kind of thing. Do you have any main takeaways from it?

Stacey Vanek Smith: It was really interesting. I wanted to be in the room. I've never actually seen the president in person before and I wanted be in the room, which was very crowded. I don't know if you saw all the hundreds of people piling in.

Robin Pomeroy: I knew I wouldn't get in the room, but I did come just to see the crowd trying to get in the room.

Stacey Vanek Smith: It was quite a crush.

Robin Pomeroy: When you think these are all VIPs, pretty much everyone...

Stacey Vanek Smith: It was, oh people were absolutely losing their minds. I mean, it was like a Taylor Swift concert, except a slightly different mood, I think.

So I got in and it was very interesting. So I would say the first 20 minutes, you're exactly right. He was talking about energy policy, about oil prices, about wind power, which he really said was, you know, he said it was a ridiculous form of power and there were just a lot of opinions.

And I think everyone kind of started to relax at that point. There was so much tension. Everyone kind of relaxed and it was like, oh, I mean, he was doing a lot of what he often does, which is talking about how he's, you know ended eight wars and is the greatest president ever and a lot kind of the normal stuff. And so it just seemed like it was going to be, the mood seemed, he seemed in a very kind of even keel mood.

So I think it really kind of relaxed. I saw people sort of starting to glance with their phones. You know, sort of joking a little bit. People, you know in the beginning were laughing very nervously. Then they started like sort of laughing at his jokes. He was joking a lot.

And then about 20 minutes in, everything changed. President Trump said, Oh, should I talk about Greenland?

Robin Pomeroy: He kind of said it like it wasn't scripted, but it clearly was, wasn't it?

Stacey Vanek Smith: All the air went out of the room. Everyone, because I think up to that point, and I also thought this, when you didn't open with Greenland, when so much time went by, I was like, oh, this isn't going to come up. This is a non-issue, just like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had kind of hinted that it might be a nonissue.

And then it was a big issue. And that was one of the... I've never seen like 900 people be so quiet. I think it was, attention was riveted on President Trump. It was shocking. I was shocked at several points. Like I felt goosebumps a couple times.

Robin Pomeroy: But did he really say anything that he's not said before?

Stacey Vanek Smith: You know, that is an excellent point. Someone else made this point. They were like, well, the real thing that President Trump said was that he will not use weapons, that he's not going to attack.

Robin Pomeroy: That's the headline that, at the time we're recording this, which is actually the evening before the show goes out, so all kind of news could have happened overnight, but that seemed to be the line most big news organisations were taking. I'm going to take Greenland but not by force.

Robin Pomeroy: Well, by the time you're listening to this on Thursday, on day four, there'll have been a lot of commentary.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Oh, my gosh. I can only imagine.

Robin Pomeroy: This is very much a quick take coming out of there.

Anyway, let's move to today, to day four. I'm going to run through a few things I've picked out, Stacey, and get your opinions on them.

We have some heads of state and government talking. These timings are right at the time this went to press. They do get juggled around, but I believe this will be right. The first one is at nine o'clock in the morning, a conversation with the president of Israel. That's the president, who in Israel, it's not the prime minister.

Stacey Vanek Smith: It's not Benjamin Netanyahu.

Robin Pomeroy: It's not Benjamin Netanyahu, it's Issaac Herzog. But interesting nonetheless

At 9.30, half an hour later, we've got Friedrich Merz of Germany, the Chancellor of Germany. I think he's the first European head of government to take to the stage, certainly in Davos, but probably anywhere since that Trump speech. So I think that kind of will be an unmissable one.

We've got the Prime Minister of Greece at 10.30, and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Prabowo Subianto, I think I'm more or less saying that correctly, the President of Indonesia.

Oh, and I missed, this one is not a head of state or government, but at 9 o' clock in the morning, this is fairly new on the agenda, this conversation with Gavin Newsom. Are you familiar with him?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes, governor of California. In fact, he just compared President Trump to a T-Rex.

Robin Pomeroy: Not sure I get that comparison.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Either going to mate with you or eat you. I'm not sure I 100% got that either, but it was memorable.

Robin Pomeroy: Okay, so there we are. It's funny that he's on at nine o'clock, so he'll have the first bite of the post-match analysis, if you like. And I doubt whether it will be very favourable to Mr. Trump. So he's come to Davos to be that kind of Democratic counterweight to the Republican Trump.

Stacey Vanek Smith: He's been very visible. I've seen him multiple times. I think he's been very much making his presence known.

Robin Pomeroy: Okay, so those are some of the speeches and conversations going on.

Let's look at some sessions. At 1.30 in the afternoon. Venezuela, What Next? There's a great title for a session. These are more thought leaders talking there rather than people from government, but I think it's got to be a very interesting session. Do you know what's going to happen next in Venezuela, Stacey?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I mean, President Trump did address Venezuela in the beginning part of his speech. What he said was pretty much entirely about oil, but he did say that the U.S. And Venezuela would be splitting oil profits. So I mean that was, we do know that, and he said that American oil companies are going into Venezuela, which I'm not sure is entirely nailed down yet from what I understand, but that is what he said.

Robin Pomeroy: Okay well for some very thoughtful conversation about Venezuela that's at 1.30 this afternoon and there's a couple are on at the same time as each other, both really good sessions by the sounds of things.

Quarter past four there's one called All Geopolitics Is Local and that has ministers, people in foreign ministries from France, from Poland from Saudi Arabia we also of people from Bridgewater, Meta. And my colleague Mirek Duszek, who's the managing director of the World Economic Forum.

Robin Pomeroy: 4.15 as well, but you don't need to watch these live, these will be available on catch up for a long, long time ahead. But you can find it if you scroll down to 4.15. Town Hall: Dilemmas Around Growth.

And that has just two guests. One of them is Kristalina Georgieva, who's the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and the other one is Niall Ferguson, who is a senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, is a famous historian. So I think that's a good pairing. I'd be very interested in seeing what happens there.

Stacey, economy, I mean, that's the other big thing that links all these things. You know, it's the economy, stupid. So I think growth and the lack of it. And the risks to growth, that's also been a very big thing running through discussions here. Is that something you've been reporting on as well?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I have noticed that. I haven't reported on that as much, but one of the other sort of aspects of the economy is sort of the energy economy that I think has been a big part of the conversation, certainly maybe framed a little differently than it has been in, yeah, I mean, maybe framed a little different than, than a typical sort of like exploring alternative energies framework, but framed very much in terms of cost and affordability. So that is something that's another thing that I really noticed.

Robin Pomeroy: I think that's going to be a big thing coming out of Davos as well, the energy one is. It's one we'll be exploring on Radio Davos.

If you're new to this show and you're listening to it because it's at Davos, the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting, you should know it's actually weekly. I do the show every week and we're looking at every week a big issue, be that the economy, geopolitics, the environment, society, all kinds of interesting things. So please do follow us. Don't give up on us at the end of this week. We're year round, as is the World Economic Forum.

Stacey, before you go, where can people find your podcast and everything else you do?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Wherever you get your podcasts. And my work particularly is on Business Week's website. They can find it there.

Robin Pomeroy: And the name of your podcast again?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

Robin Pomeroy: Everybody's Business so look out for that.

That's it for day four. You can follow all the action here in Davos on our website. There's a live blog you can look out for that and of course Radio Davos will be back- before I go I should just say the reason there's a lot of noise is because we are doing this in the heart of the conference centre.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes, the inner sanctum. Only feet away from where the president delivered his address today.

Robin Pomeroy: Outside that room. So that's the reason for that.

But I'll see you tomorrow where you can get this from six in the morning, wherever you get podcasts, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, but also on the Forum Live app. But for now, from Stacey Vanek Smith, from me, Robin Pomeroy, see you tomorrow.