Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump’s Greenland Threat Sparks International Backlash

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

BREAKING: Trump escalates Greenland Takeover — threatening tariffs on eight European allies if Denmark doesn’t agree to sell the island, sparking outrage from the EU and NATO partners. What’s really at stake? Alex Wagner and Ben Rhodes of Pod Save the World break it down. Go to https://www.cookunity.com/CROOKED for 50% off your first order. Thanks to CookUnity for supporting the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we are doing a rapid response video, and I will say it is really warranted a rapid response because so much is happening so quickly. And there is, God, there's like literally no better person to speak to than you, Ben. So thank you for doing this. Unfortunately, a lot of the activities in my portfolio, Alex. Yeah, unfortunately. So, like, I don't know, it feels like I woke up today and I was very interested in these embarrassing text messages. I'm going to go ahead and call them that, that European leaders were sending to Donald Trump, that he then leaked to the press,

these kind of like completely unconvincing greetings of friendship that Trump was receiving from, I don't know, say, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. Dear President Trump, my dear Donald. Yeah. Yeah. My dear Donald, why don't you come to Paris and after we talk about Greenland, I'll give you a long-stemmed red rose at dessert? You know what I mean? Yeah.

we'll have a like a sort of G7 on the margins and then you and I will have an intimate dinner in Paris with Buff Borgignolle and your favorite creme brulee. Like it is just shameless pandering to Trump. Even the NATO Secretary General Mark Gruta. He's the worst. He's the worst. Mr. President, dear Donald, I can't wait to see you. The fuck you can't wait to see him.

These people are all shivering in their timbers, right? So that was how the day began. A lot of these same leaders are now. in Davos in Switzerland. And it sounds been like they are getting their hackles up a little bit more. I want to play some sound from the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who admittedly was not, as far as we know, sending a love letter to Donald Trump on his text machine. But he is sounding utterly combative.

Let's take a listen to what he said. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

He went on to say this fiction was useful, but this bargain no longer works. Oh, I guess we're shredding the post-war global order today. Is that what's happening, Ben? No, what's happening, Alex, is that that order has been shredded and has been dead for a while now. And Trump's election confirmed it. It was over. Full stop. Done. No rules-based order after Donald Trump's reelection. That's been obvious. And these guys just keep acting like they are discovering a house on fire after the house has already burned to the ground. I mean, that's my read on what's happening here. And, you know, Mark Carney, I should say, just as a little background, has just been on. a little bit of a world tour where he went to China. So, you know, he's actually putting his money where his mouth is. Basically, he signed up with the Chinese on a huge trade deal. Yeah. I mean, so, to his credit, actually, he's not just giving speeches in Davos. But this is what we always

said, well, they're going to go to China. Well, they are. So, so again, we can kind of keep having the same conversation about how whither the rules-based order, it does not exist. And what we're witnessing is a whole bunch of European leaders, you know, it's somehow taken them. over, well, exactly a year now, to talk themselves into realizing it. Yeah, we sit here and we're recording this on January 20th, which is one year since Donald Trump was sworn into office. And you're right. Like, it did the pace of destruction. And the upending of the world as we knew it one year ago today is really something else, pretty staggering. I want to play some sound from moments ago in the White House where Donald

Trump was asked about the NATO alliance. And this is what he. said. Mr. President, are you committed to keeping the U.S. in NATO? I've had such a good relationship. I've made it so much better, so much stronger. It's so good now. NATO is so much stronger now. I don't agree with a lot of the things they've done,

but that was done before I got there. I think NATO's been good. Sometimes it's overrated, sometimes it's not. But we have a strong NATO. When I came here, we had a weak NATO. We had a NATO at 2% and they weren't paying. nothing NATO. NATO's

whether you like it or not, it's only as good as we are. If NATO doesn't have us, NATO is not very strong. What? Here's the thing. What I get tired of is people trying to sainwash this or like he's a madman strategy. He's a fucking idiot. Okay?

I mean, NATO was strong not because of the percentage people spell on defense. NATO was strong for 80 years because it was rooted in a political, defense agreement where first the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation knew that if they invaded a NATO country, that NATO would come to the collective defense of that country. And so, therefore, that never happened. And by the way, the proof of that in a way is Ukraine,

because it's not a NATO country. And they wouldn't have messed with Ukraine if it was inside of NATO. That's a whole other story, because I'm not sure that that was feasible. But the point is, he doesn't understand that the strength of the alliance, by the way, the 5% number is what he says, he's gotten them to commit to their defense. None of them are spending that. It's a fiction. It is something that they tell him they're going to do sometime in the future that he then brags about. It's not true. It's bogus. And by the way, most of the American media kind of repeats it, just like they repeat that he's ended eight wars. That's bullshit too. Let's stop pretending like any of this is anything other than what it looks like, which is Donald Trump is hostile to NATO. He's

hostile to alliances. He doesn't like liberal Democrats, right? And I'm not even saying that in the left sense, just in the classical liberal sense, that's what's happening. And it doesn't matter how much money everybody spends on defense, if there's no commitment to collective defense, and one NATO member is threatening to invade and annex the territory of another NATO member. That's what makes NATO not strong. Right. Okay. So I'm still worked. You got me. No, I, I mean, I think it bears, it obviously bears saying and then repeating over and over again, he's a fucking idiot. But nonetheless, the fucking idiot is destroying. institutions single-handedly because he didn't get a prize? I mean, I guess the question is

Europeans are, they may be late to the party. They may be late to understanding the degree to which their understanding of global alignments has been completely smashed. What is the, what is, what leverage other than hostility do they have and should they use? I mean, right? Like there's a lot of talk about, you know, what Macron has suggested. He left, I should note, Switzerland without meeting Trump. I don't know if they're going to have a romantic dinner in Paris on Thursday. You know, there's talk of European leaders closing U.S. military bases if Trump tries to seize Greenland.

There's talk about trade sanctions, retaliatory trade sanctions. Trump has already threatened tariffs that are supposed to go into place on, I believe, February 1st. There's a discussion about, you know, the anti-coercion instruments. that the UU has at its disposal, which they've never used before, which Macron has floated. Like what is the next step? If they are finally admitting that this thing is falling apart, what should happen? And actually, what do you think will happen next?

I think it's insane that the United States would blow up the NATO alliance to try to annex Greenland for a million reasons. but principally, like blowing up a collective defense alliance that has worked for 80 years to take a big chunk of ice because it looks big on maps and then usher in a new era of like imperial conquest and competition that could lead to a world war, that's a bad thing, right? So the people that don't want that to happen, they have agency, right? Republicans in Congress who are like having codels to reassure Denmark. No, pass a law saying that he can't do that, right? The Europeans are saying, no, send 15,000 European troops to Greenland and just put them there and say,

we have 15,000 troops there. You're going to start a war with Europe for this piece of ice, right? And I don't mean that to be disparaged to 50,000 people that live there. That's part of the reason why you're doing that. Say we will take all of our trade to China, you know? Like, like, these, what bothers me is that everybody has leverage, right? The Europeans are big, rich countries. The Republicans in Congress control a branch of government, right?

Like, if you don't want, we know what's going to happen if you do nothing. He's going to take Greenland, right? That's the status quo that we're currently on. But he can't if enough people say, this is a terrible idea and we're going to stop you. And I include the Americans on this, too. Like, I'm not rooting against us. I'm rooting for us. because I think it would be idiotic for us to do this, right?

So all these people who are like wetting the bed in Davos, and that includes codels from the U.S. Congress, like actually go back and look at what your leverage is and use it because if you don't use it, this guy's going to come back for more. You give him the Nobel Peace Prize. He'll won another prize. Well, they gave it to him. They gave it to him.

Think about this. They invented a new prize, the FIFA World Cup Prize or whatever. Then they gave him the prize. It's not about the Nobel Prize. Peace Prize because if you give that to him, he'll want another prize and another, you know, if you keep giving a bully your lunch, he's going to come back the next day for your lunch money. I write about this on my substack. I was bullied in second grade and I gave stickers away hoping to appease my bullies.

And it did not fucking work. And I learned that lesson the hard way when I was seven. These guys know much, they should be threatening to pull out of the World Cup. Like that's something that actually makes a difference in Trump's like date-sized brain. They should be threatening to put troops on the ice in Greenland. The reason I think people, Ben, forget the reason that Donald Trump is the first U.S. president since Bill Clinton to be at Davos is because he's supposed to be making some big remarks on Wednesday about affordability and the housing crisis.

In Davos. In Davos. Nothing says I care about pocketbook pain in America like, you know, cross-country skiing in Davos with billionaires, setting even those optics aside. is baited himself into threats of an unasked, like an insane unhinged war in Greenland at the precise moment that he knows he's politically vulnerable. Why aren't European leaders putting that on the front burner? Why aren't they saying, don't you have problems of your own at home that you're supposed to? Why aren't they talking about the affordability crisis

in America? Like, why don't they hit him where it hurts? Yeah, I've been sounding this on Ponce of the World of the Europeans for a while because they, they are acting, like the American law firms and the American universities that thought that the path of capitulation would be the path of least resistance and found out it was the opposite for a long time now. And look, one of the reasons they're doing that is a lot of them are politically weak. They're underwater. They don't feel strong enough to stand up to them. I would argue, if I'm counseling them even politically, if we're in an age of nationalism, like, be a little nationalist. Stand up for your nation. You know, try that out. Because Mark Ruda, you mentioned the

Native Secretary General. This is a man that texted Trump. After he bombed Iran, right, illegally, that daddy, he called him Daddy. Do you remember this? And he said, sometimes Daddy needs to come home and, you know, I mean, it was grotesque. Yes. Like, have some, maybe the reason you were all. Spanking, basically. Daddy needs to give the errant girl a spank.

Put aside the everything about that. Maybe the reason that you're not respected by your own populations and they're turning to far right parties is because you're. like that, right? Like maybe, just maybe, just maybe. The reason that nobody is taking you seriously and you're underwater and the far right parties are kicking your ass is because you look that weak. I don't know. That's just, I'm just going to, you know, no bad ideas in a brainstorm. Try to find some backbone. Pod Save America is brought to you by Cook Unity. I've been using Cook Unity forever for years, long before they ever sponsored this podcast. It is fantastic. Most of

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crooked to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first order at cookunity.com slash crooked or use the code crooked. I will say in Europe, maybe this is because my stepfather's Dutch. They make the Belgians, a lot of the butts of a lot of jokes. And yet, I know those jokes. There's so many anti-Belgium jokes. This is like a real, it's a weird thing. It's a real thing.

They make great waffles. And chocolates. Pretty good chocolates. The Belgian Prime Minister. Bart de Vavor. This is like a line that they should all put on a piece of paper and carry around in their wall. It's being a happy vassal is one thing, he said. Being a miserable slave is something else. If you back down now, you will lose your dignity. There is no point in being soft anymore. If someone says, I want to take NATO territory from you or else I'll start a trade war,

then we will start a trade war. It is the only way to deal with this situation. And by the way, like they have the example of Jerome Powell fresh in their rearview mirror. Like if someone is out there saying we're going to make your life miserable, launch a criminal investigation that's completely cocked up. You go hard, you go ham, you get the global world order behind you, and you take the, you know, you take the fight to someone's front doorstep. That's the only way to deal with Trump. And yet somehow people have not gotten it, although I will say, Ben, I do think today in the last hour, I feel like they're actually beginning to get it. They're beginning to let me ask you about the Board of Peace, which I guess is Trump's plan to usurp the relevance and

power of the UN Security Council. I know. Just so you know, much like a Mar-a-Lago golf club membership, you need to pay $1 billion for permanent membership in the Board of Peace. And the countries in Europe that are interested in joining the Board of Peace are Hungary, Hungary, and Hungary. Outside of Europe, Albania, Belarus, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco. Tells you a lot about the... First of all, where is this billion dollars going? Nobody has answers that question. It's going into crypto. I don't know. No, but it's like it just it's you have to pay a billion dollars, but who are you paying the billion dollars to? Because the board of peace doesn't, it's just a thing on paper. It doesn't exist. It's not like a building or- Membership's expensive,

even for theoretical organizations that offer you nothing in return. It sounds like one of these subscriptions that you sign up for where, you know, you forget. It's like, oh, you can try this out for a month, you know, and then you forget that you signed up and all of a sudden you get like a bill, right? sense what the fucking board of peace is. But it's not, we don't even know what it's going to do. What would they do? What is it going to do? I think it's technically, in the, in the peace industry, it's known as a shakedown.

Yeah. It's just known as a fucking con to maybe pay for the troops in Greenland or the purchase of Greenland. I don't even know. More ballroom expansions? Who can know? A billion dollars? Totally arbitrary.

This is where we're at. The good thing is it's just Victor Orban, I guess. But just connect to the European thing. Nobody should join the board of peace. No. If Donald Trump wants to have a ridiculous meeting with the leaders of Hungary and Belarus and maybe he can shake down some Gulf Arabs to show up, but frankly, at a certain point, they're going to start to look ridiculous too.

Then that'll be embarrassing to him. Everybody can say no to this guy. Like, we're not going to get through this, in fact, unless everybody doesn't start say no to him. there's not another answer. There is no other answer. And in addition to the strategy of punching a bully in the nose being really the only strategy to employ, this is not a bully that's operating.

I'm stretching this bully metaphor as far as I possibly can. This is a bully who doesn't have his own lunch money. Like he doesn't have the coin to be able to afford a playground fight. Like he is, he doesn't have the strength. I mean, he is a weak precedent. he is coming to Europe to make basically for a press op to suggest to the American public that he's not completely asleep at the wheel on the American economy as he's trying to maybe launch a war on a giant piece of ice and and add more tariffs that will cause further

economic pain to people who can't afford ground beef. I mean, it is all fucking unhinged. This is not a man with power. And Europe, I think, is finally understanding that like appeasement, especially for weakened leaders is a fool's strategy. His power is nothing he's done. It has nothing to do with like weird 5% pledges or the fake number of wars he says he's ended. His power is what he inherited from us, the American people, right? The U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency. And he loves to go around and weaponize that to punish other countries and try to get them to do

what he wants to do. Number one, the Supreme Court could be about to rule that you can't do that, but put that aside. I don't put a lot of faith in the Supreme Court. And I recommend to everybody your Leah Lippman interview on Pots of America this week. Thank you. Leah Lippman is all hail. But number two, if every other country is like, we're not playing by those rules anymore. Like shit in the bond markets will get real very fast.

And the American economy, along with a lot of other, would collapse. And I don't think he has the stomach for that, right? These countries don't have to play by his rules. They can just say we're not doing it. And frankly, they be doing us a favor, right? Again, I want to stress because I know what the people like to, some people like to, you're rooting against America. No, I think having a nut job who's trying to weaponize 250 years of accumulated influence by the United States

to go around kidnapping foreign leaders and conquering pieces of ice until we get into a world war. That's bad for America. So everybody in this country and in other countries, now is the time to just be like, Like, no, this is a fiction. Your power, you are the Wizard of Oz, and we are pulling the curtain back. We're not playing by these rules anymore. And let's see how he, what his move is then. Also known as go fuck yourself.

Ben Rhodes, this response was rapid and florid. No, not florid. Excited because what we are living through are exciting, destabilized times. I know that the country can look forward, or the world can look forward to more of your brilliance on your podcast, which I know will be a, it's a big meal. It can be a barn burner. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a barn burner of Pod Save the World.

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