The Dictatorship
Donald Trump Jr. arrives in Greenland with a message from his dad: ‘We’re going to treat you well’
President-elect Donald Trump told residents of Greenland that “we’re going to treat you well” as his oldest son visited the mineral-rich Danish territory that’s home to a large U.S. military base, heightening speculation that the incoming U.S. administration could seek to acquire it.
The president-elect later told a news conference he wouldn’t rule out using military force or economic coercion to take control of Greenland, saying that “we need it for national security.”
Earlier, the president-elect posted a video showing a TRUMP-emblazoned plane landing in Nuuk, the Arctic territory’s capital, in a landscape of snow-capped peaks and fjords.
“Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland,” Trump wrote. “The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!” Supporters later posted video of Trump speaking by phone to locals.
In a statement, Greenland’s government said Donald Trump Jr.’s visit was taking place “as a private individual” and not as an official visit, and Greenlandic representatives would not meet with him.
Trump Jr. was in Greenland for a day trip to shoot video content for podcasting, according to a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly. Trump’s eldest son has become a prominent player in his father’s political movement and has served on his presidential transition team.
Mininguaq Kleist, permanent secretary of the ministry of statehood and foreign affairs, told The Associated Press that authorities were informed that Trump Jr. would stay for about four to five hours. Neither Trump Jr.’s delegation nor Greenlandic government officials had requested a meeting, Kleist said.
The visit nonetheless had political overtones. The president-elect has voiced a desire — also expressed during his first presidency — to acquire the territory in the Arctican area of strategic importance for the U.S, China, Russia and others.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday that the future of Greenland would be decided by Greenland, and called the United States Denmark’s most important ally. “Greenland is not for sale,” Frederiksen said, adding that “we need to stay calm and stick to our principles”
The world’s largest islandGreenland sits between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans and is 80% covered by an ice sheet. The autonomous territory has some 56,000 residents, most of them Indigenous Inuit people.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede has called for independence from Denmark, saying in a New Year’s speech that it would be a way for Greenland to free itself from its colonial past. But Egede has also said he has no interest in Greenland becoming part of the United States, insisting that the island is not for sale.
Independence has become a key issue ahead of an election for the Greenlandic parliament. A date hasn’t been set, but it must take place no later than April 6.
Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, told the AP she has no interest in Greenland becoming part of the U.S. and said she hears the same sentiment from her constituents.
“Most people don’t want it,” she said. “I think some people find it quite disrespectful. And the way it has been done, and just the fact that you’re saying that you can buy another country.”
A former colony of Denmark, Greenland in 1979 gained self-rule, which is exercises through its parliament. Copenhagen still exercises control over Greenland’s foreign and defense policy. A treaty with the United States, with the U.S. base, also gives Washington say over the territory’s defense.
Denmark’s King Frederik X has been asserting the kingdom’s rights to Greenland as well as the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago located between Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic Ocean. The king’s power is mostly symbolic.
Last month, the king by royal decree changed Denmark’s coat of arms to include fields that represent Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Greenland is represented by a silver bear with red tongue. The royal announcement noted that since 1194, the royal coat of arms “visually symbolized the legitimacy and sovereignty of the state and the monarch.”
“We are all united and each of us committed for the Kingdom of Denmark,” the king said in his New Year’s address, adding: “all the way to Greenland.”
The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland — located near the North American landmass — is not new, with early attempts in the late 19th century.
During his first term, Trump mused about purchasing Greenland. He canceled a scheduled trip to Denmark in August 2019 after the prime minister dismissed the idea.
Reviving the issue in a statement last month as he announced his pick for U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Trump wrote: “For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
Writer E. Jean Carroll finally has the $5 million — plus interest — that a jury ordered President Donald Trump to pay her in damages in one of her two cases against him, after Trump fought the payout for years.
Court records posted Tuesday show a transfer of $5,625,005.48 to Carroll’s legal team took place the day before.
Carroll received the money more than three years after a jury found that the president was liable for sexually abusing her in a Manhattan department store in 1996, and then for defaming her on social media. Trump has repeatedly appealed the judgment to no avail — including petitioning the Supreme Court multiple times — and last week launched a last-ditch attempt to block her from getting the money.
Last Tuesday, his legal team filed a briefrequesting that the disbursement of the damages be halted, pointing to his pending request for the Supreme Court to reconsider its refusal to hear his appeal.
A federal judge nevertheless ordered Wednesday that Carroll be paid, prompting a swift appeal from Trump and a motion for an emergency administrative stay on the disbursement of the funds.
That request was denied.
“Three years ago, a unanimous nine-person jury found President Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Today, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict,” said Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Lisa Rubin is MS NOW’s senior legal reporter and a former litigator.
To the extent that the United States and Iran had a ceasefire deal in place to end the deadly, destabilizing war, that agreement has unraveled. Donald Trump has declared the ceasefire “over”; both countries have renewed their military strikes; and the American president is positioning the U.S. as a mercenary forcewith plans to charge tolls to pay for guarding the Strait of Hormuz.
As for the deal the Trump administration negotiated with Iran, formally known as a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, conservative host Hugh Hewitt asked the president whether the framework was “built to fall apart.” The Republican responded with an answer he hadn’t shared previously.
“It was built to test. It was a test,” Trump replied. “We didn’t know. It didn’t, look, memorandum of understanding, when you’re dealing with sleazebags, don’t mean much. And they don’t mean much when you’re dealing with honorable people, too, because it’s memorandum of understanding. It doesn’t mean much.”
The president went on to say that Iran “didn’t honor the test,” before suggesting that he had predicted from the outset that officials in Tehran would cause the agreement to collapse through noncompliance. “I said, ‘Watch, I guarantee. Watch.’ And they never, they never followed it.”
The apparent point of the on-air comments wasn’t merely to blame Iran for the unravelling deal, it was also to convey the suggestion that Trump knew all along Iran would cause the framework to collapse.
The trouble is, very recent history proves otherwise.
It was exactly one month ago when the president published a statement to his social media platform, announcing, “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all!” About an hour later, seemingly eager to pat himself on the back, he added“This Great Deal will bring Peace and Security to the whole Region. Many presidents have tried to make Peace with Iran, and all have failed before me. The Leaders of the Region have, for the first time, found a President who can help them achieve real Peace.”
In the days that followed, not only did Trump continue to celebrate his alleged triumph, but the White House invested an enormous amount of time and effort in touting the deal, all while Vice President JD Vance went on a media tour, doing his best to defend the policy on the merits.
There was nothing about this being a “test.” Not a word was uttered about the idea that the deal “doesn’t mean much.”
If the president expects his post hoc rationalization of this failure to persuade anyone, he’s probably going to be disappointed.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
GOP’s Ron Johnson shares, then retracts, a conspiratorial ‘rumor’ about Mitch McConnell
We’ve known for a month that Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was hospitalized, but neither he nor anyone on his team has been willing to say why. Over the weekend, McConnell finally took steps to end the speculation, issuing a statement to explain that he’s been recovering from a fall, followed by what he described as “a mild case of pneumonia.”
The statement was accompanied by a photograph of the senator in a hospital bed alongside his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. For good measure, the image showed a newspaper — specifically, Sunday’s Washington Post sports section — in McConnell’s right hand.
It stood to reason that the statement and photo would revive the conversation about why the former Senate majority leader hadn’t disclosed any of these details earlier — the lack of transparency surrounding his personal health has long been a point of concern — but some in conservative politics went furtherfloating assorted conspiracy theories about the authenticity of the image of McConnell and his wife.
The chatter was not limited to the far-right fringe.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin appeared Monday on conservative media channel Real America’s Voice, where the senator told host Eric Bolling, in reference to the McConnell image, “I’ve just heard from some other sources that was an older photo. So I really don’t know.” (He did not identify his alleged “sources.”)
The Wisconsin Republican went on to say that he hadn’t spoken directly with McConnell, but that he hoped his colleague has a speedy recovery so he can return to Capitol Hill and help advance Donald Trump’s agenda.
Hours later, when pressed by reporters about his conspiratorial on-air comments, Johnson said, “It was a rumor, don’t — discount it, just discount it. … I just heard it, so assume it’s false.”
The bigger picture matters. Johnson isn’t just some guy; he’s a three-term member of the U.S. Senate who was speaking to a national television audience about an ailing colleague. It’s the opposite of his job to amplify baseless “rumors” and add fuel to fringe conspiracy theories. As the Wisconsin Republican really ought to know, those in his position have a responsibility to avoid conspiratorial nonsense.
What’s more, there’s the GOP senator’s track record to consider. Shortly after Trump grudgingly left the White House after his 2020 defeat, he was effectively banned from most major social media platforms and made few television appearances. Around this time, The New York Times described Johnson as Trump’s successor as the GOP’s “foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation.”
In the years that followed, Johnson seemed a little too eager to prove his critics right, peddling bizarre and easily discredited nonsense about Covid-19. And the Jan. 6 attack. And vaccines. And climate change. And the 2020 presidential election. And the 2024 presidential election.
Last year, the Wisconsin Republican reached new depths, becoming the only senator from either party to embrace fringe ideas from the so-called 9/11 truther movement.
With this in mind, his on-air comments about McConnell and what he’s “heard from some other sources” are consistent with what we’ve come to expect from Johnson, though this only makes matters worse for his unfortunate reputation.
Finally, that the senator walked back his own rhetoric seemed like a step in the right direction, though I’m curious about his motivation: Did Johnson urge reporters to “discount” the “rumor” he spread because he recognized it as irresponsible, or was he scrambling to better position himself as the next chairman of the Senate Budget Committee in the wake of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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