Greenland row deepens as Trump, Europe brace for Davos (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: President Trump leaks what he says are private messages from European leaders concerned over his threats to annex Greenland. The message from French President Emmanuel Macron, I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. NATO Secretary-General Mark Brook tells Trump he is committed to finding a way forward on Greenland. In the meantime, Trump gets a face-to-face with the two leaders tomorrow in Davos for the World Economic Forum. He and his team expressing optimism and urging leaders to calm down in the face of his threats.

[00:00:33] Speaker 2: I don't think they're gonna push back too much. Look, we have to have it. They have to have this done. They can't protect it.

[00:00:40] Speaker 3: We've always been able to work through our differences calmly. As friends, we will continue to do that. I want to assure you this morning that that is still the case. Calm down the hysteria.

[00:00:51] Speaker 4: Take a deep breath.

[00:00:54] Speaker 1: But Denmark has a strong warning for the president.

[00:00:58] Speaker 5: We will of course defend Greenland. If there is an evasion by American troops, it would be a war and we would be fighting against each other. We know that the Americans are stronger than us and you have a much stronger military than ours, but it is our duty to defend our land and our people.

[00:01:18] Speaker 1: Joining me now in the group, Chad Zach Wolf, CNN politics senior writer, Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist and former senior advisor to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, and Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist and pollster. So a couple developments this morning. I believe that Mike Johnson actually addressed the UK Parliament vowing to calm tensions. I want to play this for you because he also went on Nigel Farage's show and was asked directly about the pursuit of Greenland and what Trump is doing. And Farage is of course known as being an ally of Trump. So here's what happened.

[00:01:58] Speaker 6: This is I mean, this is the biggest fracture in our relationship between our two countries since Suez in 1956. This is serious. And and you're here about to speak before Parliament. I mean, is there nothing that can be done here?

[00:02:14] Speaker 3: Well, I'm here to encourage our friends and calm the situation. Look, I think we're going to get beyond this little rift. I don't think it's a threat to NATO or to this special relationship that we have in the long run.

[00:02:27] Speaker 1: Which kind of flies against these texts that have been released. What did you notice in the text?

[00:02:32] Speaker 7: Well, first of all, Mike Johnson, little rift. He sounds completely different than the president. Right.

[00:02:38] Speaker 1: And so does Besson.

[00:02:40] Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, they are saying something completely different in those text messages. I thought it was interesting. Why would Trump release these? They were showing the little rift that Mike Johnson was talking about. They also kind of showed, and maybe this is what he was trying to do, the sort of deference that the world leaders are showing him. Macron, let's do dinner on Thursday and talk this out kind of a thing. So Trump is showing that they're still being nice to him and coming to him. But that was a head scratcher. Like, what is he at?

[00:03:07] Speaker 1: Well, it shows them, I think, Macron, who actually has spoken quite strongly saying that, hey, maybe Europe should use its own economic nuclear option to kind of go after the U.S. What do you guys see in how this is playing out now that they've actually landed in Europe and actually have to have these conversations face to face, Kristen?

[00:03:24] Speaker 8: I mean, to me, it is baffling on a number of levels. It's deeply unpopular. It's even not that popular with Trump's own base, the idea of engaging in military activity in Greenland. But what it really is, I think, is Donald Trump, his real estate guy, I want to acquire territory and assets, is coming out in full force. I think he thinks that these, like, tough mafia-style tactics are how you negotiate a better deal. But I'm really glad to see that, at least right now, I mean, this in some ways feels a little reminiscent of Trump's first term, when he would say and do things and there were, like, a number of adults in the room, they'd be like, let's, uh, let's maybe not do that. We actually haven't seen as much of that this term.

[00:04:06] Speaker 1: The adults, or?

[00:04:07] Speaker 8: Well, the attempt from within his own party, his own cabinet, to say, to try to constrain or contain him. And that's what, this feels like they have, they are realizing this one is way too far.

[00:04:18] Speaker 4: And the American electorate, coming up less than a year from the midterms, are kind of where Macron is. They kind of would understand Venezuela. Dictator seems bad. Taking rid of a dictator seems okay, maybe. Iran seems bad, seems Iran has done bad things before. But Greenland?

[00:04:34] Speaker 1: That's where the American public is. The CNN polling was showing that independents, something like 82%, oppose the Greenland conversation.

[00:04:41] Speaker 4: And we're not talking about gas and groceries and regular things as we move towards the summer.

[00:04:45] Speaker 1: I want to play one more thing for you. Don Bacon, who's been on a roll since, you know, he's in a YOLO situation, he was saying that he is, of course, very against this. And here's how far he went.

[00:04:59] Speaker 9: One way or the other way, whether it's even Republican control, or if it's Democrat control after November, I think it would lead to impeachment. I think it's invading ally, to me, is a high crime and misdemeanor. And we have a treaty, we have the NATO agreement, and it would be basically severing this whole agreement and invading an ally, a democracy, it's immoral, it's wrong.

[00:05:29] Speaker 1: I guess he's just saying it on the way out.

[00:05:31] Speaker 4: I just want to say something quick before folks give commentary on this, so everybody at home understands who Don Bacon is. There's only three congressional races in America that a Republican currently occupies that Kamala Harris won, and this guy's in one of them, and he's retiring.

[00:05:45] Speaker 10: Joining us now live from Paris is CNN senior international correspondent Melissa Bell. Melissa, give us a sense of what the dialogue appears to be between Trump and Macron. It seems that that relationship is souring.

[00:05:58] Speaker 11: That's right. First of all, the idea of that meeting tomorrow in Davos, Rahel, of the American president with a number of those European leaders involved in the defense of Greenland promises to be pretty frosted. Wouldn't you love to be in a corner of that room to hear the tone? Because, in the meantime, there is no suggestion that either side is backing down of the question of the future of Greenland, nor of the question of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs on the part of the Europeans. Instead, what you've had is this war of words this morning between the French and American presence. Long gone are the days of the bromance, it seems. It isn't simply on the question of Greenland and the tariffs and the countermeasures being prepared by Europe, but on the question of the Council for Peace, that you'll remember President Trump sent invitations out to 60 or so world leaders over the course of the weekend to try and oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, but in a sort of enlarged format, that it would see it sort of rival the U.N. in terms of its ability to try and ensure peace in different parts of the world. We understand that the French president, amongst others, have refused, declined the invitation to join this board of peace, an invitation, by the way, also extended to the Russian president. In response to that, you heard the American president threaten the French with 200 percent tariffs on their wines and champagnes. So, no suggestion that these threats of tariffs being used as a tool for international diplomacy is going anywhere, nor, indeed, that you can expect the European response to be anything other than frosty by the time the leaders meet tomorrow in Davos. On the question of Greenland, what we're seeing is a reinforcement of troops on the part of the Danes, largely symbolic, but certainly as a strong signal to Washington that Europeans intend to stand firm on the future of the Arctic island. And in terms of those retaliatory tariffs, we will see European leaders meet here in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the transatlantic relationship and its souring nature, even as they consider the weight of their countermeasures. We understand also that President Macron had extended the American president invitation for a G7 summit here in Paris on Thursday as well. So, ratted it up have these tensions become, in the hope, and that was the message of the — the sense of the message that Emmanuel Macron sent to the American president overnight, then published by President Trump, the idea that, on Greenland, there could be no agreement, but that, on a number of other issues, there was a possibility to work together, and that dialogue was essential, even as this tension continues to mount.

[00:08:36] Speaker 10: Yeah. House Speaker Mike Johnson emphasizing that dialogue is possible moving forward. We will see. Melissa Bell in Paris. Melissa, thank you.