Trump Storms Davos and Lays Out Exactly Why America MUST Have Greenland, with RealClearPolitics

What this episode is about

In a bold presentation at Davos, Trump articulates the strategic importance of Greenland for the United States, emphasizing its potential benefits for North America and Europe. He critiques longstanding policies in Europe, advocating for reforms to strengthen European nations, while also stirring controversy with his brash remarks about other world leaders and nations.

Key takeaways

• Trump's Greenland obsession: national security or just a new notch in his geopolitical belt?
• Forget minerals; with global warming, Greenland's ice melts faster than Trump's credibility!
• Entertaining or alarming? Trump's foreign policy plays more like a backstage comedy than a serious act.
• Venezuela and Iran are complex; but hey, Greenland is just a strategic ice cube to Trump!
• Is it a matter of legacy or just another 'buying a country' whim? You decide!

Who speaks in this episode?

• Megyn Kelly (Guest) · 5 min speaking
• Tom (Guest) · 3 min speaking
• Carl (Guest) · 3 min speaking
• Andy (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 9:00 – 12:00: Birch Gold Group

Notable quotes from "Trump Storms Davos and Lays Out Exactly Why America MUST Have Greenland, with RealClearPolitics"

• Should own physical gold. So, until January 30th, if you are a first-time gold buyer, Birch Gold is offering a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, just text MK to the number 989898.

  about Birch Gold Group · at 11:51

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Companies & orgs

• Birch Gold Group — Company · 1 mention · first at 11:37

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 I thought the president was highly entertaining today. And to me, this is like Trump in full flourish. This is the guy who at the I don't know, it was like one of those economic summits first term and he grabbed the guy from Montenegro and shoved him shoved him to the back because the United States president wanted to be in the front row. That was him, Tom. He was that it was that guy today. Like you over there. You wouldn't even exist if it weren't for us. And you'd be speaking German if it weren't for us. And what are you laughing at over there? I got some for you, Switzerland. Your your former prime minister is annoying. It was It was I really enjoyed it. And I have to say I think I'm in the minority right now, but not for long. I agree with him on Greenland. He's actually convinced me on that. I'm not so big on the Venezuela thing and I certainly don't want to invade Iran, but on Greenland, he's

0:51 gotten me. I can explain why. But your thoughts overall, Tom, to kick it off on where we are in that soundbite in particular? Yeah, this was uh this was something by Trump. And I did not see his press conference yesterday. I was traveling back from Arizona and so I didn't see that. It didn't get good reviews. Apparently, he just sort of rambled on and on. This one he stayed on script pretty much. I mean, he always goes off script to a certain degree, right? But he did uh he explained the rationale for why it's important for not just the United States, but also Canada, which he took a shot of Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada as well, but also for Europe. Um and and he also said I and I thought this was interesting that that you know when he was talking about Europe he said listen we want a strong Europe. His you know we want you to be strong so you can defend yourself uh and we want you to be successful and

1:40 in order to do that you have to change these policies that you've had in place for 40 years that have weakened you as countries mass immigration and energy being the two specific ones that he mentioned. But on Greenland he did he did explain sort of the rationale for it. Now, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, I think it's clear though that Trump sees this as a matter of national security interest for the United States moving forward. And I would I was going to say urgently, and maybe it's not urgent, but I think to Trump it is. I mean, he's only got a couple more years left in office. And and he sees this as part of uh I think his his legacy in terms of defending the United States. And you talked about the Golden Dome and all that. So, it definitely was, I think, classic Trump and and fairly entertaining uh stuff from him.

2:27 Here's a little bit more of what he said on Greenland on explaining why he wants it. S four.

2:34 Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland? I was going to leave it out of the speech, but I thought I think I would have been reviewed very negatively. I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory. And the fact is no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States. Reason you know to everyone talks about the minerals. There's so many play. There's no rare earth. No such thing as rare earth. There's rare processing, but there's so much rare earth. Then this to get to this rare earth, you got to go through hundreds of feet of ice. That's not the reason we need it. We need it for strategic national security and international security. And that's the reason I'm seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the

3:40 acquisition of Greenland by the United States. Here's just a little followup here in Six.

3:52 So, we want a piece of ice for world protection and they won't give it. We've never asked for anything else and we could have kept that piece of land and we didn't. So they have a choice. You can say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember.

4:18 So Carl, he's putting it online saying we want it. It's actually not for rare earth minerals. It's for national and international strategic and security reasons. And the real explanation around this uh has been, you know, if you look at Greenland on a map, you will see that thanks to global warming, we've had the entire sort of ice sheath around it melt away. And it's far more accessible by people like Russia and China than it ever was before. And if you pursue Trump's reasoning on the Monroe Doctrine, not in our hemisphere, that that was coined by our fifth president, that we're responsible for what happens in our hemisphere, which Greenland is.

5:00 Um, and this one's been exposed in a way it wasn't 30 years ago, and that we actually have to take responsibility for it because it's, you know, it's right above our our evil top hat, Canada, and also to the right a little, that's Michael Nolles's term for Canada. Uh, that we have to take responsibility for it. So, what do you make of

5:18 I don't believe any of it. I don't think it has anything to do with national security. And I don't even think it's because of all the minerals. I think Donald Trump wants it a feather in his cap. He wants it like, you know, you know, Seward's Folly. We got Alaska for what, $7 million. I think he wants Greenland because he for the same reasons he renamed the Kennedy Center after himself. I think he wants to acquire this territory. It is rich in minerals. Um and and this but this thing Megan and you know Tom and Andy I don't think feel as strongly about this as I do. I don't think they agree with me at all actually. But um this this idea that um you go you you you ridicule these people or shame them or threaten them because we liberated Europe from the Nazis. You know Russians lost 20 million people. We shouldn't forget that liberating Europe from the Nazis as well. But it it sets on its head um

6:14 Americans idea of itself in the world. It was General Mark W. Clark who World War II general who said, you know, pointed out we didn't go to Europe for conquest. We went there to free these people from Nazi tyranny and protect the world, protect ourselves. He said, "And all we ever asked for was a place to bury our dead. That's the only territory we wanted." Coen Powell said the same thing. If you Google it, you'll people Google tell you Coen Powell said it. He was actually quoting Mark Clark, General Clark. Now Trump comes along and said, "Nope, sorry. You got you guys' be speaking German if it wasn't for us. And we had this territory and we want it back. It's really ours."

6:52 It's like the most unAmerican thing. It's It's a like a New York insult comic turn real estate man turned politician.

7:00 I another word for it is true. It's true. I've said my piece. It's like what? No, I appreciate it too. I appreciate the count the counter point of view because I I got to tell you like we'll talk about the polls later and I know Trump's losing the independents and he's starting to lose them by a lot. He's got overwhelming Republican support and he doesn't have any Democrat support and he's starting to really slide with independence. And my mom is an independent. My mom is kind of a lifetime Democrat, but she did vote for Trump and she's she's in that independent group that's starting to slide and she sounds a little bit like you, Carl. So like I appreciate the POV because there are a lot of people who have it. So, it's important to be exposed to it and understand how how Trump is affecting some people. I mean, I I think Andrew, like the there's a real question about whether Europe is what it used to be and and how closely

7:51 tied we ought to be to Europe. It's not your granddad's Europe. It's just not. I mean, they're turning into an authoritarian group of countries themselves. They are literally arresting people in Germany and the UK for thought crimes, for thinking the wrong thing and for tweeting the wrong thing. I mean, it's getting genuinely scary over in Europe. And so, like, people say, "Oh, we shouldn't be aligned with Russia. We should be aligned with Europe." It's like Europe is doing its level best to get closer and closer to what Russia is when it comes to free speech every day.

8:30 They're the ones making themselves less like what we first aligned with with the influx of migrants and the changing on civil liberties and free speech. And I think Donald Trump is looking at them saying, "Amidst all this, you want us to pay for your defense, which is effectively what we do through NATO." Those days are over. And if they're not over, we want something for it. And maybe it's a higher tariff, whatever. But actually, what I'm telling you I want is Greenland. And what I really want is for you to just stay the hell out of it. Stay out of it. We'll stay in NATO. We'll continue paying the bills.

9:05 You all said you'd raise it to 5%, but you're not in fact doing that. It's the United States price tag. We all know that. We're the ones responsible for defense. If if Germany gets attacked, if France gets attacked, it's the United States that will swoop in to save them. Everyone knows that. And now we have a president who's saying we'll do it, but we actually do want something in return. And the the what we want right now is a country called Greenland, a territory. And the reason we want it is okay, he says, not rare earth. I accept that. But strategic importance to the United States. And we have an eye on our two main adversaries, Russia and China, in a way we didn't have to up there.

9:43 Well, I think I can buy part of that, but I I do I do question whether the strategic importance of Greenland in his mind is is really what's at stake here because Greenland is important, but it's not that important. And everything that we want to do in Greenland, we could do without acquiring the territory. And the idea that somehow legally we would not defend it. Well, we defend bases uh US bases all over the world uh that are in all different countries. And we do have this thing called article 5 with NATO which says we're going to defend uh France and Germany and the other NATO countries. So I I'm not sure he's on firm ground legally when he when he says we need it in order to defend it. Um but I do think that and we played on our show Howard Lutnik's uh bite which I thought was very revealing where he talked to your point that Europe has followed this path of globalization and globalization has been a failure. Um,

10:36 and that to me is the theme of the administration at um at at uh at Davos. Um, and I think that's a powerful theme. And I think that Lutnik in particular because he point he made the point he said, why would you go in the direction of electric electrification and trying to be uh sort of carbon neutral by 2030 if you don't even make your own batteries? It was sort of like, oh yeah, that's a really good way to put it. So I think that message to Europe uh we'll see if it gets through.

11:07 Um the other thing that he said uh to your point uh Megan is he said that he knows that the US will come to to defend Europe. He's not so sure that that it's uh that the opposite is true. Um and that you know that's makes you think as well. I mean would France and Britain come to our defense? Um it's a question that's worth asking. A new year means new financial goals like making sure your savings are secure and diversified. Will this be the year you decide to talk to somebody from Birch Gold Group? You know you've been thinking about it. They use an educated approach with a deep understanding of macroeconomics.

11:46 There are forces pushing the dollar lower right now and gold higher, which is why they believe every American should own physical gold. So, until January 30th, if you are a first-time gold buyer, Birch Gold is offering a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, just text MK to the number 989898. Birch Gold can help you roll an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold, and you are still eligible for a rebate of up to 10,000 bucks. Consider making right now your first time to buy gold and take advantage of a rebate of up to $10,000 when you buy by January 30th. Text MK to the number 989898 and claim your eligibility today. Again, text MK to 989898 now.

12:37 Thanks so much for watching. If you like what you just saw, hit the subscribe button for more clips and full episodes.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump Storms Davos and Lays Out Exactly Why America MUST Have Greenland, with RealClearPolitics"?

Megyn Kelly (Guest), Tom (Guest), Carl (Guest), Andy (Guest).

What is "Trump Storms Davos and Lays Out Exactly Why America MUST Have Greenland, with RealClearPolitics" about?

In a bold presentation at Davos, Trump articulates the strategic importance of Greenland for the United States, emphasizing its potential benefits for North America and Europe. He critiques longstanding policies in Europe, advocating for reforms to strengthen European nations, while also stirring controversy with his brash remarks about other world leaders and nations.

What is mentioned in this Megyn Kelly episode?

1 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Birch Gold Group. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump Storms Davos and Lays Out Exactly Why America MUST Have Greenland, with RealClearPolitics"?

The episode runs 13 min; the transcript is about 2,378 words in 21 timestamped sections.

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