Trump ADMITS DEFEAT And Totally Folds In Greenland Flop

What this episode is about

In a surprising turn of events, President Trump has effectively abandoned his pursuit of acquiring Greenland, opting instead for diplomatic engagement with Denmark and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Following a speech at Davos where he assured global leaders that force wouldn't be used, Trump announced the removal of planned tariffs on Denmark, suggesting a framework for a future deal related to Greenland and the Arctic, although specifics remain unclear.

Key takeaways

• Trump's Greenland aspirations met their Waterloo at Davos—no shots fired, just a tariff retraction!
• Tariffs off, dignity dropped—America's foreign policy now runs on good vibes and inflatable deal frameworks.
• For Trump, every conflict is an 'infinite deal'—the only guarantee is uncertainty, like a perpetual business plan.
• While America nervously fidgets, global leaders chuckle: a failed Greenland takeover is just a display of weakness.
• In Trump's world, nothing's off the table until it is; who knew diplomacy could fold faster than a cheap suit?

Who speaks in this episode?

• Tommy Vietor (Host) · 8 min speaking
• Joe Kernan (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Mark Rutte (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Will Kane (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Joe Kernan
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Joe Kernan, CNN
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Cook Unity

Notable quotes from "Trump ADMITS DEFEAT And Totally Folds In Greenland Flop"

• Details are a bit sparse, but here's how Trump described the concept of a framework of a potential deal to CNBC's Joe Kernan.

  about Joe Kernan · at 0:46

• Does it still include you? Does it still include Does it still include the United States having ownership of Greenland like you've said you wanted? it's a long-term deal. It's the ultimate long-term deal and I think it puts.

  about CNN · at 3:20

• Yourself, What the Pods of America is brought to you by Cook Unity. I have been using Cook Unity forever, for years, long before they ever sponsored this podcast. It is fantastic. most.

  about Cook Unity · at 7:03

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Joe Kernan — Person · Referenced interviewer (CNBC) · 4 mentions · first at 0:54
  He interviews Trump and is portrayed as overly accommodating; the interview is used as evidence of vagueness around the 'deal' and as a target of ridicule.

Companies & orgs

• CNN — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 3:17
  Mentioned as the platform where Trump was pressed for details about the Greenland deal.

Sponsors

• Cook Unity — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at 7:06
  Promoted during the podcast, offering chef-designed meals for convenience and nutrition.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 All right, Tommy. Uh, in the Trumpian war for Arctic supremacy via the conquest of Greenland, it turns out that Davos was Trump's Waterloo, where he surrendered to Denmark without ever firing a shot.

0:13 Well done. Uh after telling an audience of global elites he wouldn't be using force to take Greenland, the president later announced that he is dropping his planned tariffs on Denmark and our other European allies after he and NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta quote formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and in fact the entire Arctic region. This solution if consummated will be a great one for the United States of America.

0:38 Consummation is usually used in the context of banging, right? Yeah. He and Ruto are going to that deal right up.

0:43 Well, he does call him daddy. Details are a bit sparse, but uh here's how Trump described the concept of a framework of a potential deal to CNBC's Joe Kernan.

0:55 Getting back a lot of of some of the nervousness we had in the last couple of days. The tariffs are off. Nothing happens on on February 1st.

1:02 No, we took that off because it looks like we have pretty much the concept of a deal,

1:06 a deal of of ownership. the deal. Well, it's a little bit complex, but we'll explain it down the line. But the secretary general of NATO and I and some other people were talking and it's the kind of a deal that I wanted to be able to make.

1:21 Where does Denmark did they weigh in on on what they want, what they would agree to?

1:26 Well, I assume they did because he very much represents he's a strong leader, Mark. You know, Mark,

1:33 and he uh I assume he's been speaking to them. He's been speaking to all of them. Are mineral rights involved? Is is ownership involved? Did the Golden Dome slay people?

1:42 I don't want to say yet, but the Golden Dome was very compelling today when you talked about that.

1:46 Yeah. Yeah. The Golden Dome. And uh they're going to be involved in the Golden Dome and they're going to be involved in mineral rights and so are we.

1:54 Joe Kern has given Trump some golden dome there. That interview that was Sean Hannity watched that and started getting jealous. What do you think, Tommy?

2:02 He like Trump just got rolled. He he put all his chips in the table and then he realized like this was not it was not worth fighting this fight to steal Greenland and he took tariffs off the table. He took military invasion off the table and he folded like a cheap suit which he was also wearing there. Um is this is like this is why it's so annoying to be a Democrat on foreign policy because obviously I'm glad he climbed down from this insane position. I don't want us to invade Greenland. I didn't want us to bomb Iran. But like he is weak and pathetic uh and embarrassed himself almost as much as Joe Kernan in that interview

2:38 and really as much as everyone involved. Yeah. I mean just the plenty of embarrassment and humiliation to go around.

2:45 The only thing I see I I'm embarrassed for America when I see this kind of stuff. I also though look at the rest of the world and I'm like now you know what we have to deal with.

2:52 Yeah. It sucks. We're all in this together, aren't we? Like also like concept of deal is one of my favorite political euphemisms. It's like it just means there's not even close to a deal. No one's agreed on anything. Nothing is papered. Nothing is signed. Well, I'm like basically stop asking me the question. Well, and it's not like we got any more information from Trump as time went on. Um he saw a bunch of reporters after that interview with Joe Kernan and uh they pressed him for more details. And here's what uh here's what Trump said to Caitlin Collins of CNN.

3:20 Does it still include you? Does it still include Does it still include the United States having ownership of Greenland like you've said you wanted? Uh,

3:29 it's a long-term deal. It's the ultimate long-term deal and I think it it puts everybody in a really good position, especially as it pertains to security and minerals and everything else.

3:42 Have you How long How long is it, Mr. President? Spen to other leaders. What? Have you really spoken to other European leaders?

3:51 Yes, I have. How long How long would the deal be, Mr. President? uh infinite will speak to Denmark. Did you speak to Denmark?

3:59 There's no timeline. It's forever. And how would you ratify the deal? Be money involved.

4:03 It's signed forever. Will there you haven't signed anything yet right? It's a deal that's forever.

4:09 Will there be an effect anyway, Mr. President? Will there be an effect? People what happens is people are out there and they're working it right now. They're working the details of the deal, but it's in it's what's called an infinite deal. forever.

4:23 You talked about, you see, the deal has interrupted the space-time continuum. The deal exists outside of time and space.

4:34 There has never not been a deal. There never will not be a deal. The the sad little like quiet piano music in the background makes the whole thing even little

4:42 Doesn't he seems he seems defeated? He must be so tired. Remember this guy just did like he's done like 50 events today. He flew all the way to Davos. He did like a two-hour press conference yesterday just repeating the same crap. Yeah, this is unconditional.

4:55 You don't you don't think he's fueled by uh his his diet of McDonald's? Oh, yeah.

4:59 Yeah. This is You're right. This is his Yorktown. I mean, what I'm guessing they're going to announce is some added number of US troops in Greenland for missile defense purposes, but we already have troops there and a base there doing that and we already had the right to put more troops there. And then he'll claim that he has secured some sort of oil and gas or mineral access that I assume will just absolutely never come to fruition because these are decadesl long projects because as you may have heard uh in his speech earlier, Greenland is in fact covered in ice and it'll be very hard to get to all this stuff even if it's melting. There was a there's a paragraph in the Times story on it. It says, "The announcement followed a NATO meeting on Wednesday where top military officers from the alliance's member states discussed a compromise in which Denmark would give the United States sovereignty

5:42 over small pockets of Greenlandic land where the United States could build military bases according to three senior officials familiar with the discussion." And then they're saying, but they don't know if that was Rut's idea and they don't know if that has formed the basis for the potential framework for a future infinite deal. But um pockets of pockets of green small pockets of Greenlandic land is where we're at now.

6:05 Like what what are we talking about? It sounds like was wasn't there always an offer to like you can build more military bases if you want. So maybe the military bases where you build them I guess on the technical so everything is so stupid. This is exactly but like this is sort of what you figured was going to happen if it wasn't all out war, right? is that like it is just something to tell you. But even he doesn't he doesn't seem like he believes that he knows that he cannot sell this. He like he will have his suckups and his sick of fans and we're going to watch one in a minute that will give you a sense of where this is going to go. He knows that this is insane and he also knows that like again it's his fault. Like he could have quietly tried to negotiate this behind the scenes then announced it. But he decided to tweet an AI image of himself planting an American flag in the soil in Greenland with JD

6:55 Vance and Marco Rubio against a sign that said Greenland uh United States territory established 2026. And I'm sorry you set a pretty high uh bar for yourself,

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7:53 You were talking about sick of fans, uh, Will Kane of Fox News. Oh my god. Um, I know you've criticized it before, but you know what he's really good at? He's very, very good at humiliating himself on live television. Uh, and here he is doing that right now.

8:05 Yeah. Um, what does this strike you, Carlo? This entire episode, it's really hard not to see this through the lens of the art of the deal. President Trump makes a demand, and that is the purchase of Greenland. He is initially and immediately rebuffed. He amps up the demand in saying that we will own Greenland, that we will take Greenland, to which everyone then responds even more exasperated and in shock. And now we wind up back in a place where perhaps it's not full ownership, but it is a deal that he describes as good for everyone. It seems like President Trump, it doesn't matter how many times we go through this exercise, nobody understands the lesson of what's happening. It is the art of the deal.

8:55 How do you can you imagine going? How do you say that with a straight face? Will Kane, you are a embarrassment. That is so like do you have any selfrespect?

9:06 Don't forget the balls, sir. Mr. Kane and we're you know what? And then he amped up and then everyone's exasperated. You know where we end up back at? We end up back nowhere.

9:15 A deal that helps no one. It's like we end up back at something that uh the people that he wanted to give something up didn't give up anything and instead gave what they had already offered before he made the threat and in the process alienated all of our closest allies. Nearly tore apart NATO, nearly tore apart the international order, told every country in the world that the United States, in case they were still wondering, and most of them weren't, that we are not a reliable ally anymore. And also he created a new cycle for himself that distracted him from the core message of affordability that they were supposed to be focused on. Remember remember the big reset? Remember Susie Wilds was going to do a an affordability tour and that was going to be all we focused on now. I mean

9:59 I mean in fairness once again everyone was complaining about affordability but we were about to pay Greenlanders $100,000 a person billion.

10:08 Yeah. And then uh and then levy more taxes on ourselves for tariffs. And now art of the deal, Trump has saved us all that money. Like again, it's a good outcome. Like we didn't really get anything. You know, none of us are going to benefit from this stupid deal. I'm sure most of it will never come to fruition. It it's a good outcome that we are not still going to war with Denmark. But it's just like imagine working in the White House and you just wasted weeks of your life with this idiotic nonsense.

10:32 Forget about the White House. Think about all the people in Europe. Think about the fire drill they all went through.

10:36 All the diplomats, all the things we could the opportunity Mark Carney just gave a gave a speech about how it's the end of the global order.

10:42 Yeah. The prime Yeah. the Canadian prime minister just denounced you to everyone. By the way, Mark Carney is the only like one of the only politicians who's figured out how to manage Trump effectively and benefit politically from it. Like remember the the Liberal Party in Canada was dead in the water. It was like nine years of Justin Trudeau. They were going to get crushed in that election and then Trump started saying they're the 51st state. Mark Carney runs his campaign with elbows up as the mantra like we're going to fight the Americans back. He wins election and now he's really popular. Like there is a lesson that a lot of foreign leaders can learn and should learn from this which is this guy like there's more bark than bite at this moment. You know all of his tariff threats if you actually punch back um he will cave because the stock market dipped 2% or whatever.

11:22 Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What a waste of goddamn time. I mean I guess the one some someone who got something out of it is Will Kane who's uh you know he's on his way to becoming the next Hannity there with with just talk like that.

11:33 Wild. That guy is a clown. I've never seen anything quite like that. Um, there are going to be a lot, keep an eye, there's gonna be a lot of that on Twitter.

11:40 Yeah, keep an eye on it. But I think the uh the appropriate response is to ruthlessly mock them. And if you want to uh hear more of that mocking

11:49 and you want us to bring you up totheminute news on uh what's happening with our potential wars against foreign adversaries like Greenland, Iceland,

12:00 really anyone in the Arctic. Please subscribe to Pave America. It's free. Hit the subscribe button. We're doing this all the time. It's a good We're having fun. Help progressive independent media. Let's do it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump ADMITS DEFEAT And Totally Folds In Greenland Flop"?

Tommy Vietor (Host), Joe Kernan (Guest), Mark Rutte (Guest), Will Kane (Guest).

What is "Trump ADMITS DEFEAT And Totally Folds In Greenland Flop" about?

In a surprising turn of events, President Trump has effectively abandoned his pursuit of acquiring Greenland, opting instead for diplomatic engagement with Denmark and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Following a speech at Davos where he assured global leaders that force wouldn't be used, Trump announced the removal of planned tariffs on Denmark, suggesting a framework for a future deal…

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

3 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Joe Kernan, CNN. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump ADMITS DEFEAT And Totally Folds In Greenland Flop"?

The episode runs 13 min; the transcript is about 2,543 words in 49 timestamped sections.

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