JANUARY 15, 2026 – According to Viking lore, to throw enemies off course, Eirik the Red called the (then relatively green) island hanging just below the arctic circle, “Iceland,” and named the glacier covered island now in Trump’s crosshairs, “Greenland.” If Trump couldn’t care less about anything green, doubtless when Marco Rubio informed him that Greenland was the biggest island in the world, Trump, the inveterate “real estate man” just had to “own it.” Par for the course—at least until “Little Marco” informed The Boss that the “green” in “Greenland” didn’t pertain to golf. But when Trump asked “What else is it good for?” and the Secretary of Status informed him, “Rare earth metals,” the president was all in. “Make it happen,” he directed. Yes, the promotion of bad and wrong, Trump’s designs on Greenland are most certainly “par for the course . . . of his administration.”
While driving to “Iceland” yesterday—normally “Little Switzerland,” but now converted to a vast skating rink after a day of temps in the 40sF followed by temps in the deep freeze—I tuned the car radio to “Patriot Radio,” the AM station spewing forth rightwing vitriol between ads for local evangelical Christian academies (dedicated to “classical” curricula that teach your kids “how to think instead of what to think . . . and [read, “but”] support God and country” and gutter-scraping outfits touting their skills in negotiating deals with the IRS on behalf of people up to their eyeballs in unpaid income tax liabilities. Since I discovered upon arriving at the iced-over entrance to my destination that I’d forgotten my skis (“hockey skates”?) and poles, I had to make the quick drive trip home and back to retrieve them, all of which resulted in six minutes of exposure to “Patriot Radio” instead of two.
Consuming the entire six minutes was a segment of Scott Jennings’ syndicated talk show in which he expressed enthusiastically sycophantic support for Trump’s designs on Greenland. I nearly choked. Scott Jennings is the former legislative aid of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. For years, Jennings has been a regular panelist on CNN shows, filling the role of token glib apologist for Crazy Town. For handsome recompense, I’m sure, he’s hired himself out in CNN’s transparent but ineffective attempt to present itself as truly “fair and balanced,” when in fact, it, along with its cousin, MS Now, is an opinion outlet, not a news station abiding by traditional tenets of journalism.[1]
In any event, Jennings parroted Crazy Town:
- We need Greenland for security reasons, a bulwark against the threats posed by Russia and China.[2]
- Concomitantly, by American annexation of Greenland, NATO will be strengthened.
- Trump is a “real estate guy” and knows what he’s doing. Conveniently, there was no mention of Greenland’s riches in the form of rare earth metals.
I nearly drove off the road, though I was doing only 20 as I navigated through the rut-and-rumble of unplowed St. Paul streets on my way to and from “Little Switzerland.” I was glad that conditions in “Little Switzerland” itself—make that “Iceland”—would be similarly frightful. It meant I’d need to train 100% of my attention on staying upright. That imperative would distract me from what I’d just heard come out of the mouth of a middle-aged, adult American with a college education and presumably, access to . . . well, some level of accurate information about the world beyond Crazy Town.
After skiing, I gathered my thoughts in response to Scott Jennings’ parroted rationale, as it were, for our taking Greenland, whether by “the easy way” or, as Trump says menacingly, “the hard way.”
FIRST: As to national security, this “argument” is patently disingenuous. In the first place, a long-standing treaty between the U.S. and Denmark/Greenland already allows us to build as many military bases on Greenland as we deem necessary. During WW II, we maintained 17 bases there. For years we’ve been down to one. Moreover, if Russia is suddenly a threat to our security, why, for crying out loud, has Trump been buddies with Putin, treated Zelensky as if he were an enemy, and taken a “give the store away” approach to negotiating an end to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine? And how is it that no one—no one—in MAGA world ever hinted at the need or desire to take over Greenland until Trump announced this hare-brained idea?
None of which is to diminish Russian and Chinese designs to control arctic shipping lanes and natural resources. But when have we heard Mr. Policy-Making by Impulse lobby for more icebreakers and monitoring vessels to stay apace of the Russians and Chinese, who are years ahead of us exploring, mapping, and strategizing for control of the arctic?
SECOND: The argument that American sovereignty over Greenland would strengthen NATO is also downright laughable, coming from a president who has done all he can to denigrate the alliance and undermine its viability—as a bulwark against the Imperial Russia, the very threat that forms the purported basis for seizing Greenland. Further, the NATO argument ignores the fact touching our noses, namely, that Denmark/Greenland are NATO members. If anything, Trump’s dual “concern” for American security against Russia and China in the arctic AND strengthening NATO could be addressed far more effectively by NATO—and international law (i.e. respect for the territorial integrity of other sovereign nations—particularly our own allies, for crying out loud). Moreover, does no Republican who condones Trump’s foreign policy insanity not see that the biggest threat to our national security, is our own contemptuous disregard for international law? Have they no brains? No shame?
THIRD: Jennings’ most ludicrous statement was that Trump’s (checkered) career as a real estate developer qualifies him as a “deal maker” (or outright thief) for America’s acquisition of Greenland. The only connection between Trump’s background and Greenland is that both involve land, but any kind of conceivably applicable “expertise” Trump might have as a “real estate guy” or any other kind of “guy” is wholly divorced from legal, ethical, or moral issues, let alone the adverse geo-political ramifications of the United States taking hostile or extortionist action against another sovereign nation that poses no threat, actual or theoretical to the U.S. or any of its allies.
* *. *
But as is the case with everything else coming out of Crazy Town, we must ask ourselves, How can it be that people who should know far better—people such as Scott Jennings and “Patriot Radio” star, Hugh Hewitt, not to mention Republicans in Congress—aren’t absolutely and unequivocally opposed to Trump’s Greenland nonsense?
If ever there were a time and place for the Vikings to put Greenland on ice . . .
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Fox News is shamelessly a propaganda outlet completely in MAGA’s lane and at Trump’s beck and call.
[2] On the way home after skiing, I heard another long-time rightwing talk radio personality, Hugh Hewitt, on his show, peddling shamelessly an additional reason for an American takeover of Greenland: over-fishing by the Chinese. His vehemence on this point wasn’t accompanied by a shred of evidence. In fact, although China’s DWF (“Deep Water Fishing”) fleet is linked to over-fishing (albeit mostly legal) in international waters elsewhere, the most recent data reveal few Chinese vessels (or Russian, for that matter) in the vicinity of Greenland. Mr. Hewitt’s argument is a big fat red herring.
