You Don't Understand How Much People Hate Trump's Greenland Plan

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the widespread unpopularity of former President Trump's proposal to annex Greenland, highlighting a recent poll indicating that only 8% of Americans support using military force for this endeavor. The conversation also touches on the context of Trump's motivations, including his response to being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize, revealing a significant disconnect between his ambitions and public sentiment.

Key takeaways

• Trump's Greenland obsession: a political iceberg—vastly unpopular, yet crashing through national priorities like a rogue ship.
• Only 8% back military force for Greenland; even his worst ideas occasionally muster more support. Greenland? Silence.
• Annexing Greenland might be Trump's bid for relevance, but it's more 'Desperate Housewives' than 'Game of Thrones'.
• Mitch McConnell's defense of Greenland is like a lifeguard at the Titanic: lacking effectiveness and common sense.
• When seeking legacy, Trump’s Greenland dream is ripple-less—its political impact could sink without a trace.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Feifer (Host) · 9 min speaking
• Caroline Restston (Guest) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Caroline Restston
2. 3:00 – 6:00: Caroline Restston
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Mike Rogers, Haley Stevens, Abdul Elsa, World War Powers Act

Notable quotes from "You Don't Understand How Much People Hate Trump's Greenland Plan"

• Joining me as always is the amazing Caroline Restston. Caroline, how are you? I'm good. I'm ready to dive in on Trump's hard on for Greenland.

  about Caroline Restston · at 0:25

• Situation because then he is directly violating Congress. Right? The whole point of the World War Powers Act is that if Congress comes together in a veto proof majority and…

  about World War Powers Act · at 6:13

• Through a few of them. Let's start with Michigan. A new poll from the state shows how each Democratic candidate is fairing against Republican Mike Rogers. what did the poll…

  about Mike Rogers · at 7:28

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Caroline Restston — Person · Co-host · 2 mentions · first at 0:25
  Co-leads discussion, asks questions to structure analysis, and reads/introduces Discord questions.
• Mike Rogers — Person · Referenced candidate/opponent in Michigan Senate race discussion · 2 mentions · first at 7:35
  Used as the Republican benchmark in polling matchups against multiple Democratic candidates in Michigan.
• Haley Stevens — Person · Referenced candidate in Michigan Democratic field · 2 mentions · first at 7:46
  One of the Democratic candidates tested against Mike Rogers; noted for higher name recognition as a congresswoman.
  Rogers. what did the poll find and what are your takeaways? Well, the poll found that Mike Rogers is leading all three Democratic candidates, Haley Stevens, Malmora, and Abdul Elsa.
• Abdul Elsa — Person · Referenced candidate in Michigan Democratic field (name uncertain) · 2 mentions · first at 7:46
  Mentioned as a Michigan Democratic candidate with higher name ID; transcript suggests a statewide run in 2018. The name appears to be a transcription/NER error.
  And all by relatively similar margins. The one place where he has a slightly larger margin is against Abdul.

Concepts & topics

• World War Powers Act — Concept · 1 mention · first at 6:18

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 I think he's lost it. I really do. I think he I mean, that's probably true. I mean, did he ever have it? I guess that's that's the uh that's the question.

0:11 Welcome to Bullet Coaster. I'm Dan Feifer. Today, I'll be discussing how voters are reacting to Trump's truly insane threats to annex Greenland. We'll take a look at the state of some of the Democratic primaries in in the big Senate races. Then, we'll wrap up by answering your Discord questions. Joining me as always is the amazing Caroline Restston. Caroline, how are you? I'm good. I'm uh ready to dive in on uh Trump's hard on for Greenland.

0:34 I saw that that uh I saw saw that in the outline and I didn't really know what to do with that, but go for it.

0:39 I I figured it was a little out of character, but I just had no other way of understanding how to describe what was going on because it's so insane. Um but so you just like you just said, for years he's vowed to get Greenland and recently has really ramped up his efforts. There was new reporting just yesterday um that shows that part of Trump's threats to annex Greenland comes from Norway snubbing him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Uh so obviously Trump really cares about Greenland, but Dan, do the American people want Trump to take over Greenland. What's going on?

1:12 I've heard you say this is incredibly unpopular, but how unpopular is it really?

1:16 It could not be more unpopular, Caroline. No one wants him to take Greenland. The So we have a Yuggov poll last week that showed that 8% of people support mil using military force to take Greenland. 8%.

1:31 Who is that 8%? Well, they're they're all Republicans. Um and that's it. But and then you have then the other uh proposal on the table is that the United States would take money from our treasury and we would pay off individually Greenlanders somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000. that gets a whopping total of 13% uh support and a tiny fraction of Republicans in both cases. Uh I think it's only 25% of Republicans would support paying Greenlanders for this island. The CBS poll showed basically the same thing which showed that uh 13% of voters supported military force and 30% supported paying using buying Greenland essentially. No one wants this. It's truly insane. There's no actual constituency for it. Even Trump's most unpopular ideas generally have some group of people who like it. Their worst right most right-wing handmaidaden's tail abortion policies that are incredibly unpopular, at least have this

2:30 group of hardcore supporters who want it, right? There is even when Trump said uh that there were fine people on both sides talking about Nazis, there at least the Nazis liked it. There is no one here who wants Greenland. There's never been a group who's been fighting for it. It's could not be less popular and it is hurting him. You know, there there you were seeing in a bunch of polls an increased number of people who think he's spending too much of his time and energy focusing on matters abroad compared to the things they actually care about here at home like the price of housing, groceries, healthcare, etc. So, is Trump just like beyond caring how unpopular his agenda is and just doing whatever he wants for I don't know his legacy?

3:14 I think he's lost it. I really do. I think he I mean, that's probably true. I mean, did he ever have it? I guess that's that's the uh that's the question. But he like this is this is insane. He he is either not taking advice from anyone or no one will tell him what he doesn't want to hear. I think he has this idea which is uh there's like a long history of failing desperates using the accumulation of territory as a way to demonstrate power and relevance. This is exactly what Putin did in Ukraine. Both times he was having political troubles both with Crimea in 2014 and the rest of the country a couple years ago.

3:52 And so I think there is that but just no one wants this and no one will really speak truth to power here. That's the like that's the and tell him that this is an incredibly idiotic idea with dramatic consequences. Dramatic consequences like NATO was falling apart before our eyes. Canada is not making deals direct directly with China because they can't trust us anymore. The our our allies are sending troops to Greenland to as a show of force against the United States. It like the I mean this is like honestly the best news that Russia and China could ever hope for. It's bad for the United States. It's bad for the world. And he's continuing to pursue it even though no one wants it. There is no upside here. There's not a substantive upside. There's not a political upside.

4:35 It's all downside for everyone. Okay. So, we have a Discord question on this. So, this is from the BBN Fizzlebang. I've seen a Republican senator post about Greenland being a red line for impeaching Trump. Is there any data that points to support for impeachment? Is there general public support for stopping him advance with removal from office? What is the calculus for waiting until he blows up NATO before moving on him?

4:57 Well, it's actually Mitch McConnell who said that uh this would be a red line for Republicans to invade Greenland would be something that would be worthy of being removed from office for. I am skeptical that Republicans would actually do that since Trump tried to send a crowd to try to murder them each and they still voted they still voted to keep him in office and support him uh obquously to this day. Look, there is I think if a president were to invade Greenland, a NATO ally with the backing of 8% of Americans, that would on its face in a normal world be the sort of thing that could get them removed from office.

5:41 Will that actually happen? I don't know. The more likely thing that I think could happen here, not saying it will happen, but is that Congress could try to stop him by passing a war powers resolution now in advance to that to say that he can't invigor if he were to do so. It would be illegal because

6:02 Oh, yeah. That'll work. Well, I mean that actually would give them if they if they really thought that would I think that would increase the small likelihood of impeachment and removal in that situation because then he is directly violating Congress. Right? The whole point of the World War Powers Act is that if Congress comes together in a veto proof majority and says you cannot do this military thing and then the president does it, that is the textbook example of abuse of power that you would you would use there. And I think because invading Greenland absent that is not illegal.

6:34 It's illogical and it's uh incredibly damaging, but it's not an illegal order. Like in all the conversation about illegal orders and the Mark Kelly Alyssa Slotkin video and all of that is if the commander-in-chief tells the US military to invade Greenland, as long as they abide by the laws of war, that's not an illegal act. As I said, it's a stupid one. Um, and you can see Republicans in this scenario being like, well, the president has powers under article 2 to execute foreign policy, etc. But if they pass if they actually pass a war powers resolution, that would that would change the calculus. And it'd be interesting to see if if they would do that. I'd be surprised if they would, but um if there was one issue in which could actually happen, this might be it.

7:18 Interesting. All right. Well, we'll be keeping an eye on uh Greenland. Um, let's move on to some polling that's recently come out from several Senate primary elections. Uh, I want to run through a few of them. Let's start with Michigan. A new poll from the state shows how each Democratic candidate is fairing against uh, Republican Mike Rogers. Uh, what did the poll find and what are your takeaways? Well, the poll found that Mike Rogers is leading all three Democratic candidates, Haley Stevens, Malmora, and Abdul Elsa.

7:52 And all by relatively similar margins. The one place where he has a slightly larger margin is against Abdul. And the poll also found that Haley Stevens and Abdul say have higher name ID than Mal McMor. Now, that is to be that is not completely shocking in the sense that Haley Stevens is a congresswoman um who's run in in a couple of high-profile races. Abdul say ran statewide. Um it's been a number of years now, but he ran statewide in 2018 against Cresian Whitmer. I think my takeaway from this is it's not you can't look at this and say because I think the numbers are so far within the margin of error among the differences between the three Democrats that I don't think you can make a clear a argument here that any of the three of them are are on their face more elective than the other ones. It is worth this is a good reminder that Michigan is a state that Donald Trump won. Mike Rogers is a

8:51 candidate who almost won in 2024. He is has a bit of a reputation of being a little less fully MAGA than than most of the Republicans who run. I don't think that's particularly fair. He is bent the knee on multiple occasions since being somewhat anti-Trump earlier or at least Trump skeptical during in 2016. But it's just a reminder that this is not a gimme race for Democrats. We're going to have to work really hard there. Who we nominate matters. Um and we need a good political environment to win. This is it's a tough race.

9:26 Yeah. I I don't know why I had an idea like, "Oh, Michigan, like we'll be fine." And then I saw these

9:31 Well, we've done very well in Senate races in Michigan for a very long time now. It's been a very very long time since we've had a a Republican senator from Michigan.

9:39 Yeah. Okay. Let's move on to Texas because a Emerson College poll was just released and had James Terico leading the Democratic primary with 47%. Behind him was Jasmine Crockett at 38% and 15% were still undecided. Does Telerico's like early significant lead mean anything right now in January?

10:00 Yeah, this is the first real poll we've had since Crockett's officially been in the race. Um Emerson is a high quality pollster nationally at least. Uh I don't know specifically about their their record in Texas. But I if so let's just like we want to see more polls before that confirms the idea that Telerico actually has a large lead. But if we look specifically at this poll, what is interesting is that Telerico has a significant lead among white voters and Latinos while uh Jasmine Crockett is doing incredibly well among black voters. She gets 80% of the black vote.

10:32 But I think perhaps most interesting is that Terrico has a big lead among men and Terico and Crockett are tied among women. It's 443. So it's essential tie and so that is the formula by which he would win by a lot which is he does well with Latinos, does well with white voters and Crockett is unable to run up the score with women. So I I like to see more polls that show uh that show us what's actually happening here. But it's it's a very interesting early poll and it kind of runs counter to what I think a lot of the national narrative is is that Crockett would run away with this because she's very famous nationally. in Texas. It seems like Taler Rico has built, at least according to this poll, pretty high name ID and and pretty decent depth of knowledge for someone who's basically just been a state legislator.

11:17 Yeah. And I feel like he his moment on like the national stage was on Joe, was it Joe Rogan's podcast? Like that's how I first ever heard of this person.

11:25 He has been sort of a big name in Texas politics as like an upandcoming Democrat. He really got a lot of attention, I think probably more so in Texas than nationally. He was essentially the spokesperson for the Texas legislators when they left the state to try to prevent the redistric measure.

11:40 Okay. So he I I am surprised by how high his name ID is in this poll. I'd like to look a little deeper and see what the screen is, right? By that I mean are these people like in polls they ask you are you registered, you know, are you just a an 18-year-old adult? Are you a registered voter or are you registered voter and likely to vote in this election? I imagine that Telerico does best or will have highest name ID among a likely voter screen. Um and and each poll has a different how they draw like how they establish that screen, how they draw the threshold of likely voter and and less likely voter matters a lot. And so we it's it's an interesting poll. I think it shows that this is a uh that Telerico is stronger than we thought. Is he this strong? We'll need to see more polls to know.

12:32 Um Jared from our Discord asks, "Has there been any polling to indicate how Trump voters in Texas feel about Telerico?"

12:39 We don't know that yet. I think it's really because this is polling the Democratic primary. Um we I'd like to see you could do some hypothetical matchups um with the with Telerico and Crockett and the Republicans. You're not really going to get a true actual sense of that until we know who the candidates are because you Telerico would probably do better with some Trump voters if it is uh Ken Paxton than if it's John Cornin,

13:05 right? And Ken Paxton in this poll is just leading John Cornin by like 1%. Yeah, that the polls have been a little all over the map in this uh in the Paxton Wesley Hunt John Corner one. And this matters because it's general conventional wisdom that Paxton is much easier for a Democrat to beat than John Cornin because he's more maga. He's very very controversial. He is filled with all sorts of corruption and other other problems. Cornin is a generic blowdried Republican senator. Uh so he you know he would he the view is he'd be maybe hold on to more of those soft Republican voters that have been voting for Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Cheryl, etc. in some of the 2025 races.

13:50 Ken Paxton is uh his wife is the one who like tweeted that they were divorcing and he did something shady but didn't tell us what it was. Right.

13:57 I believe that to be the case. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Let's hope he wins. That's it for this week's preview of Polar Coaster. If you want to watch the rest of this episode, become a paid member of the channel by clicking the join button below. When you subscribe, you also get more exclusive content and add free episodes of Pods Save America and more Crooked Shows. Plus, joining is the best way to directly support us as we build a counterwe to the right-wing media machine. You can learn more at crooked.com/friend. Thanks, and see you next time.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "You Don't Understand How Much People Hate Trump's Greenland Plan"?

Dan Feifer (Host), Caroline Restston (Guest).

What is "You Don't Understand How Much People Hate Trump's Greenland Plan" about?

The discussion focuses on the widespread unpopularity of former President Trump's proposal to annex Greenland, highlighting a recent poll indicating that only 8% of Americans support using military force for this endeavor. The conversation also touches on the context of Trump's motivations, including his response to being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize, revealing a significant disconnect…

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

5 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Caroline Restston, Mike Rogers, Haley Stevens, Abdul Elsa, World War Powers Act. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "You Don't Understand How Much People Hate Trump's Greenland Plan"?

The episode runs 15 min; the transcript is about 2,704 words in 31 timestamped sections.

More from Pod Save America

• All analyzed episodes
• Books mentioned on Pod Save America
• People mentioned on Pod Save America
• Sponsors mentioned on Pod Save America
• Topics mentioned on Pod Save America