Today, Explained - Trump's Greenland obsession

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Europe is taking President Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland more seriously after the US’s actions in Venezuela. But will intervention be a red line for Republicans in Congress? This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto and Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado and Ariana Aspuru, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Astead Herndon. Protesters with Greenland flags outside the US embassy in Copenhagen. Photo by Martin Sylvest Andersen/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So last week, after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, I went to Capitol Hill and asked congressional Republicans the one question that's on everyone's mind. Are they just going to let President Trump get away with all this? President Trump was well within his authority to do what he did. Most Republicans didn't want to talk or defended Trump's every move, which only made Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky stand out even more. If we start talking about Greenland, there is absolutely zero support among Republicans. none from Democrats and none from Republicans for invading Greenland.

Paul has been leading efforts to curb Trump's war powers. And he says the White House is pushing its luck. But considering how Congress has failed to stand up to Trump time and time again, why is this time any different? And when it comes to Trump's quest to acquire Greenland by any means necessary, who's going to stop them? That's next on Today Explained. Support for this show comes from Odu.

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My name is Annie Greyer. I'm a senior reporter at CNN and I cover Congress. You cover Congress, which feels like the place to be, particularly over the next couple weeks. It does seem like, well, we're always asking a similar version of the question of like, is this the time Republicans on Capitol Hill break from Trump. And I kind of want to ask it again today. But can we just start off with a like bigger overview? I know we're entering into a midterms year. And that can sometimes cause people, particularly in Congress, to be a little more free. Do we expect that question of our Republicans breaking more with Trump to change now that it's calendar 2026 and not calendar 2025. Well, certainly Republicans know it's an election year. The spotlight is on them. And I think we're

starting to see some openings for cracks. But, you know, I put so many caveats there because whenever we think, you know, there could be an opening for a real Republican split, as we saw play out yesterday on the Hill with the War Powers vote. The clerk who report? It's president. Motion to receded calendar number two. Senate Joint Resolution 98 to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress. Trump and his team are really good at keeping Republicans in line through a public and private

pressure campaign and getting senators and lawmakers who may be wanting to split with him, getting them back in line. But his ability to do that is going to get increasingly more difficult as he becomes, you know, what we expect to be a lame duck president as Republicans start campaigning and have to figure out how to run on what Republicans in Congress have done so far, defend their work. But there are a lot of moderates who are looking at the calendar, looking at, you know, what's coming in 2026 and know that they have to carve out their own lane here. Yeah, that all feels like important context. We've seen, or for the war powers debate that we're about to talk about, some willing to do.

for Republicans to seem like they're being their own person. But of course, that feels like it's consistently tested against the White House's own political muscle. I mean, Trump's foreign interventionism definitely seems like the latest flashpoint in the GOP relationship with him. We did see five Republicans break with the White House and support that war powers resolution at least last week. Now, what changed from last week to this week?

Well, first I just want to say in the vote last. It was the day after the classified briefing. So even though a lot of Republicans were publicly saying, I fully support how this operation went down and that this was, this does not need an intervention of Congress. Clearly, behind the scenes, there were five Republicans' senators who felt very strongly. This is actually does require an act of Congress and congressional intervention. They are saying, hey, we don't know what might happen in Venezuela.

We don't know what might happen in Venezuela. We may want to commit trips. That is totally their prerogative to do. I just think that in that eventuality, Congress would need to then be on the hook for it. But then between last week and last night, what we saw play out is Trump's true pressure campaign and what it means to be a Republican in Donald Trump's party, where... Yeah, what does that look like? Immediately after the vote, Trump took the truth social and name-checked all five of those Republicans,

said they should not be elected to Congress again. Social. Republicans should be ashamed of the senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our powers to fight and defend the United States of America. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Holly, and Todd Young should never be elected to office again. These are members of his own party. Now, some of these Republican senators are sort of expected to, they often are in office. to Trump like Senators Rand Paul Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins. But Senator's Todd Young and Josh Hawley, that really took the president and his team by surprise.

So those were the two that they focused on in the next week to thinking that they were going to be the ones they could peel off. And, you know, the president was calling all five Republicans and he was very upset. He was constantly speaking poorly of them. But what we saw here was the role that Secretary Rubio played, who's a former senator, has personal relationships with all of these individuals and was able to sit with these senators, give them more information,

and give them assurances of their red line, which both Todd Young and Josh Hawley said that their red line was they did not want boots on the ground in Venezuela. Marco Rubio just sent a letter responsive to my requests and concerns that certifies, number one, that the United States has no ground. groups currently in Venezuela or operating in Venezuela, number two, that if the administration sought to put ground troops into Venezuela, they would abide by the War Powers Act, and they

would come to Congress for congressional authorization. That was really important to them. And they got the promise that that would not happen unless the administration came to Congress before. So Republicans did get something out of it, but you can ask yourself what really changed between last week and last night. It really is the whole court press that these Republicans received from Trump and his team. Yeah, yeah.

You know, the resolution was part of the growing question we were talking about at the beginning about Republicans redlined with Trump in the House and Senate, and specifically for military intervention. We had heard Rand Paul on the Hill say that he believes that the president's threats around Greenland had specifically scared some members of the Republican caucus. But now there actually has been an invasion of a foreign. capital removal of a foreign leader. I think more people are willing to understand that this is an act of war. And there is a real debate over whether or not the president can do this without the permission of Congress. What have Republican members in Congress been saying about the military use of force in Greenland? So Greenland, we are seeing an even bigger break potentially than what we saw with Venezuela and from a cast of characters that aren't the usual critics of Trump.

Okay. So Republican senators specifically are sort of like, what are we doing here with Greenland? Certainly, military force people are not on board with, the Speaker of the House, the leader of the Republican Senate, both Republicans, Mike Johnson, John Thune, have said military action in Greenland would not be a good idea. And then even when it comes to the purchase of Greenland, you have the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Wicker, who came out of meeting with Danish officials and said, you know, this is not, we should not be talking about the purchase of Greenland. That's not what these officials want. And there's a lot of Republicans even more so privately who I'm talking to who are kind of hoping that Trump isn't serious about this. And so I think Republicans are trying to not get ahead.

of where the president is here, they don't want to, you know, draw a firm line until they see exactly what Trump is going to do. But there is this sort of trepidation and this sort of, I don't know, maybe even like quiet finger crossing that Trump is going to drop this. He's going to move on and that what he's saying about Greenland isn't actually going to come to fruition. I want to ask about the general question of congressional willingness and authority here. You know, we have seen Congress kind of abdicate its role little by little over the years to the point that Donald Trump has been able to execute a more powerful executive office. Is there any kind of willingness you have for Congress to rein in that power right now? If we think even beyond the

war powers resolution, how much is the discussion of Congress's own role? How much are members talking about that? It's a huge topic of conversation. I mean, I think that's why the war powers resolution, the votes last week and last night were such a big deal, because this question is front and center for both Democrats and Republicans, because this is no longer a partisan question, but this is about protecting the institution of Congress, the legislative branch. And, you know, when it comes to the foreign intervention, more specifically, when I've been asking this question to Republicans of, aren't you concerned about Congress's role to play here, they are pointing to a number of examples in recent history that show that sort of the, the, the, the,

degradation of Congress, specifically when it comes to war powers, has been happening for a long time. I mean, if you go back to Obama and his, you know, and the bombing of Libya, when going into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, those were things that happened without congressional approval. And so, yes, what's happening right now is putting a real spotlight on the issue, but I think for people to really understand this, like, we have to go way back. This is something that Congress is sort of been seeding power bit by bit, and it finds us in this potentially crisis that we're in now. And I think the real question that I continue to ask in my reporting, and I still don't find an answer to is, is there going to, what is going to be the right line that gets people to

actually say, okay, enough is enough? Annie Greyer, senior reporter at CNN. She covers Congress. Coming up, just how serious is Europe taking the president's threats on Greenland? It's Olivia from Ollie. Is it just a good? me, or are these wellness trends getting ridiculous? Protein tracking, biohacking, it's too much. Start small with Ollie's daily multivitamin. Just two gummies a day help support your immune system, heart, and bone health.

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No weird wet salad aftertaste. Better sleep can start tonight. Go to OLL.L-Y.com to choose your snooze. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. So I'm John Henley. I'm the Guardian's Europe correspondent, and I'm based in Paris. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance met yesterday with foreign ministers from Denmark and Greenland. What happened in that meeting? What was the context surrounding that meeting?

Well, the context was that the two foreign ministers from Denmark and Greenland had asked for a meeting with Marco Rubio to, as they said, kind of really, look the American side in the eye and kind of talk some sense about what the situation really was in Greenland and to put their position across. Essentially, Donald Trump has been saying for several weeks now that the US has to have or take or gain control of Greenland, which is a huge Arctic island. It's really strategically located. It has a lot of of kind of very valuable minerals on it. If we don't take Greenland, Russia or China will, and I'm not letting that happen.

And Trump has been saying that he absolutely has to have it for kind of national security reasons. We need that because if you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and bigger, there are Russian submarines all over the place. And there's a lot of problems with those statements from the Greenlandic and Danish points of view. It is not a true narrative that we have, you know,

Chinese warships all around the place. According to our intelligence, we haven't had a Chinese warship in Greenland for a decade or so. And the second problem, obviously, you know, is that Greenland is, you know, a largely self-governing territory of the kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom of Denmark is a sovereign country. It's a member of NATO.

It's a member of the European Union. It's arguably the most kind of loyal ally to the US. And we look at ourselves as US closest allies. You know, in Afghanistan we had exactly as many casualties as US. And they don't want to be owned or bought or taken over or invaded by the United States. So in this meeting, what did Denmark and Greenland have to say? Well, you know, there's such seemingly a fundamental difference of opinion. What were they actually communicating to the Americans?

Well, they were putting those points across, really. And they did say afterwards, Lars Larker, Rasmus and the Danish foreign minister did say, after the meeting, you know, that we didn't succeed in convincing the Americans. It's not that I'm now, you know, saying everything is solved. It's not solved. We didn't manage to change the American position. At least, you know, the meeting was apparently cordial in the sense that there was a big fear going into it on the Danish and Greenlandic side that, you know, they were going to be in for the kind of humiliation that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, suffered kind of round about this time last year. And in February last year when he was in the White House meeting, meeting Trump.

And J.D. Vance, the vice president said that didn't happen, which is good news from the Danish and Greenlandic point of view. But they did say, you know, that fundamental difference of opinion remains and that they didn't succeed in convincing the US that there was no need and no necessity for the US to have control of Greenland. Basically everything that the US wants to accomplish on Greenland can be done without the US taking control of it. And so the conclusion of the meeting was that they've basically set up a kind of a high-level working group and very senior officials from both sides will try and work their way forward and work their way out of this crisis. But the foreign ministers did say, you know, that Trump really does genuinely seem hell-bent, absolutely determined on acquiring control of a conquest of Greenland. You know, as you mentioned, he's made these statements consistently. It's been a kind of fairly, it's been a desire of his that hasn't budged at all. How should we take this time different? Are there more concrete steps that the White House is taking? Is the threat of military action seemingly more imminent? Well, why is this more real? Is it? I think what has really focused minds was obviously the operation 10 days or so ago in Caracas, in Venezuela.

when the U.S. military went in and seized Maduro, the Venezuelan president, and kind of essentially abducted him and his wife. It's obviously absolutely clear that he is prepared to put his money where his mouth is. You know, the European Union Commissioner has said that if the U.S. were to invade Greenland, it would be the end of NATO. Do we believe that? Why is that? I mean, it would be probably NATO's greatest crisis in its history. I mean, what is NATO? NATO is a transatlantic defense alliance of 32 countries led by the United States, which has kind of guaranteed, since its foundation, the security of one and all under a very famous kind of mutual assistance clause, which basically means that, you know, if any one of those member states is attacked, the others commit to come to its aid.

nobody had ever envisaged that one NATO member might attack another. And that's basically why people are saying that this would be the end of NATO. I mean, I think we should say that, you know, Denmark and Greenland aren't alone in this. You know, they've been very strong statements of support from the president of the European Commission, Ersula von der Leyen. Greenland belongs to its people. so it's up to Denmark and Greenland and only to them to decide on matters

that are concerning Denmark and Greenland and that the EU stood behind Denmark and Greenland Emmanuel Macron, the French president said exactly the same thing everybody think in France in the European Union that Greenland is not to be sold not to be taken there are European troops arriving on Greenland

not very many of them, roughly the same number of Germans. There's quite a larger contingent of Danes going. And I think, you know, there's growing momentum in Europe behind the idea of installing some kind of, you know, permanent force on Greenland. And also in NATO terms, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutter, the former Dutch Prime Minister, has also said that NATO is working on plans. It's going to take time, but working on plans to improve Arctic security and to, you know, make sure that there are more NATO troops stationed there,

that there are more exercises carried out there, that there are more boats, more planes, more equipment. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was reported that Secretary of State Marker Rubio has been tasked with creating a proposal for buying Greenland with the price tag of around $700 billion. Do we have also seen the White House kind of use this as a possibility for future actions? Would there be the same reaction to the U.S. buying Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark rather than the more dramatic step of military action, which does seem to be a red line?

Yeah, I mean, that military action is obviously is completely a red line, but so also is buying the place, really. And the era when countries could buy and sell bits of their territory to others has long gone, really. Not just because countries don't buy and sell bits of their territory anymore, but because we have a thing called international law. And international law recognizes the right to self-determination of every nation. and the Greenlanders have a right to self-determination. They have been a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark since 1979. In 2009, the deal was reinforced, and they now have the right to hold a referendum on their own independence. They have the right to determine their own future.

And every poll that has been held, every opinion poll that's been carried out so far, has shown them absolutely overwhelmingly. I mean, like well over 85% of the population opposed to becoming a part of the United States. So basically, Greenland isn't Denmark. They don't want us. They don't want you. Greenland is not Denmark's to sell, and the Greenlanders do not want to be sold, and they don't want to be bought, and they don't want to be part of the US.

Where do we think this goes next? What do we expect? and is it kind of just wait and see on Donald Trump? It is wait and see. I mean, I think what the Danes and the Greenlanders want very clearly, they made it very clear yesterday, is basically they want to find a way to give the US what it wants in terms of Arctic security

without crossing their red lines, which are to do with territorial integrity and sovereignty and the right to self-determination. So, you know, that's quite a narrow path to walk, but they think it can be walked. The ball kind of is in the US camp now and whether Trump seems to have some kind of

semi-mystical attachment. I mean, it's clearly something that's kind of like, you know, in his brain and he's not letting go of it. Yeah, yeah. It's in him. emotional. Yeah, exactly. And he just wants it. And the question, I think the question, the only real question is, you know, can he be talked out of it? And that really is, will be, you know, it'll be a question of wait and see.

John Hindley is the Europe correspondent for The Guardian. Today's show was produced by Dustin De Soto and Hadi Mawadhi, edited by Amina Alsadi. Fact-checked by Andrea Lupes-Cruz and Ariana Aspadut, and engineered by Patrick Boyd and D'A. David Tadishore. I'm a Sted Herndon. This is today Explain.