Markets and allies react to renewed U.S. Greenland push (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: that's a big deal. We'll talk about that in a minute. But first, let's talk about the forecast. New this morning, President Trump says he wants Greenland. White House aid Stephen Miller tells Jake Tapper. He wants Greenland White House Press Secretary Caroline Levin will not rule out using the U. S military to get it. And now the Europeans were told they're taking it all very, very seriously. With us now seen a chief data analyst, Harry and so the people who are putting their money where their mouth is.

[00:00:31] Speaker 2: They're absolutely taking it seriously. I mean, take a look here. The chance that Trump buys any of Greenland by the end of his term on Friday, it was just 12% Whoa, way up there now to 36% are tripling in less than a week. My goodness gracious. They are very much taking what happened in Venezuela, adding on to the comments from the Trump administration of what they might want to do with Greenland. Absolutely taking it seriously. Not a majority chance at this point, but way, way up from where we were. Less than a week ago. All right.

[00:01:01] Speaker 1: So three times as much as it was. That's for buying Greenland buying.

[00:01:05] Speaker 2: What about by other means? Yeah, by other means. So you mentioned the buying at 36% right now. Anyway, in any way, 43%. So of course, there's a chance we could acquire Greenland. The United States might try to acquire Greenland, not through buying it, but maybe through military means, which is something that we've heard reported as a possibility. And so what we're talking about here is we're talking about more than a two in five shot that those who are putting their money where their mouth is, think that the U.S. will acquire part of Greenland by the end of Trump's term.

[00:01:37] Speaker 1: That's a pretty high chance. A lot of people make bets with numbers like that. Oh, yeah. That's a very high chance. All right. Now that's the betting markets. In terms of public opinion, what do Americans say about whether or not the United States should go get Greenland?

[00:01:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. So right at this point, we're saying, hey, there's a really decent chance that Trump will try and get Greenland in one way. But the American people, at least in the polling that we have before, of course, this entire escalation didn't want it. What are we talking about here? Well, we're talking about 73 percent, 73 percent. Americans oppose the idea of taking over Greenland. Just 27 percent favor it. And then this nugget, which I tried to make big because I thought it was rather important. Even 51 percent of Republicans or those who lean Republican oppose the idea of taking over Greenland. I wouldn't be surprised if that number drops and the support rises as Trump's comments come out. But at this point, at least going into this, we were talking about a slight majority of Republicans and those leaning majority even oppose the idea of America taking over Greenland. We're talking about Americans here. Yes. What do people in Greenland actually think about it? Okay. So you see that 73 percent oppose. What about Greenlanders and the idea of the country joining the United States? 85 percent, 85 percent of Greenlanders, as of last year, opposed the idea of their country joining the U.S. Just six percent. One, two, three, four, five, six percent favored the idea. There are more Americans who believe that, in fact, we fake the moon landing than Greenlanders who favor the idea of joining the U.S. So there's not a lot of political support for it. But at this point, it looks like quite the high possibility. 85 percent. If you're asking them, they're saying no.

[00:03:13] Speaker 1: No, they are saying no, no, no. Harriet, thank you very much. Thank you, my friend. We got a lot of news on this front, a lot of other fronts as well.

[00:03:20] Speaker 3: There have also been reports that the U.S. could potentially buy Greenland as one potential option on the table. What would such an offer look like? Is there anything monetarily you could provide any detail there?

[00:03:32] Speaker 4: Well, that's something that's currently being actively discussed by the president and his national security team. And I would point out that the acquisition of Greenland by the United States is not a new idea. This is something that presidents dating back to the 1800s have said is advantageous for America's national security. The president has been very open and clear with all of you and with the world that he views it in the best interest of the United States to deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region. And so that's why his team is currently talking about what a potential purchase would look like.

[00:04:07] Speaker 5: Well, the leaders of Denmark and Greenland are urgently asking for a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as the White House says it's not ruling out using the military to fulfill President Trump's desire to acquire Greenland. The island is a self-governing territory of NATO ally Denmark that the president says is needed to ensure U.S. national security. Sources tell CNN that Rubio is downplaying the military military threat, telling lawmakers the Trump administration is considering buying the strategically located island. So let's bring in national security correspondent Kylie Atwood, because Kylie, I remember during first the first term of Trump's when I was a White House reporter. Yeah, there was a lot of reporting and speculation about Trump saying he wanted to buy Greenland, but it was mainly sort of seen as a joke or not an actual serious proposal, even last year when you mentioned it. But now no one's laughing. What's changed?

[00:04:57] Speaker 6: Exactly. And we really haven't heard about the U.S. acquiring Greenland in recent months, but it's come back to the fore with a vengeance in the recent days. President Trump said over the weekend that it was important for the U.S. to get Greenland for national security reasons. Then we heard from Stephen Miller on CNN on Monday saying that nobody is going to fight the United States over Greenland's future and that Greenland should be part of the United States. And then the White House doubling down yesterday, saying effectively that the Trump administration isn't counting out the possibility of using military means to overtake the island with Carolyn Levitt saying the president, his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal. And of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander in chief's disposal. But we should also note that our reporting, as you just said, is that the secretary of state, when he briefed lawmakers earlier this week, downplayed any near term military intervention when it comes to Greenland and said that the Trump administration is more focused on the prospect of buying Greenland.

[00:06:00] Speaker 5: So President Trump has said this is about national security, but there's been an agreement struck between the U.S. and Denmark and Greenland over allowing the military to be there in Greenland. And in fact, the U.S. has significantly downsized its military presence in Greenland over the last few decades, right?

[00:06:18] Speaker 6: There are already agreements between the U.S. and Greenland, both when it comes to U.S. military presence there that they could use to expand that presence, as you point out, even though they have actually pulled it back in recent years. And when it comes to critical memorials, there's a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Greenland to explore what Greenland has in terms of its resources. One point I do want to point out I've learned is that in recent months, while we haven't heard administration officials talk about Greenland publicly very much, they've been churning on this in the interagency. Officials at the State Department at the highest level asked lower level State Department officials to come up with an assessment of the critical minerals that Greenland actually has. And their assessment was that there actually hasn't been a study done on those critical minerals, including rare earths, that is appropriate enough to determine whether or not there are tremendous amounts of resources there. And if the United States were actually to put resources towards getting out these critical minerals, it would be extremely costly because of the situation there when it comes to low infrastructure and when it comes to, obviously, the cold temperatures.

[00:07:25] Speaker 5: All right. Tylee Atwood, a lot of reporting there. Thank you so much, Wolf.

[00:07:28] Speaker 7: Very good report. Thank you. Meanwhile, Denmark's prime minister says a U.S. attack on Greenland would mean the end of NATO and the security the alliance has provided since the end of World War II. European leaders are standing behind Denmark and Greenland, saying the island, quote, belongs to its people. Our Melissa Bell spoke a short time ago with the head of NATO, the secretary general, Mark Ruta. Melissa, what was his reaction to U.S. threats about Greenland?

[00:07:59] Speaker 8: He was very cautious in what he had to say, adopting a really conciliatory tone. But you'll have to remember, Wolf, that this particular secretary general of NATO has, since he took the helm of the organization, adopted a very conciliatory approach to President Trump, going with flattery rather than criticism. And that was reflected in what he had to say to me. He was here in Paris for a meeting on Ukraine. They managed to achieve unity on Ukraine by leaving Greenland entirely off the table. But I put to him, Wolf, that the irony here was that NATO was reaffirming its unity even as that unity was being threatened by Greenland. He preferred, though, to focus on where there was agreement.

[00:08:40] Speaker 9: We all agree that it is true that the Russians and the Chinese are more and more active in the area. When you look at Denmark, they are investing heavily in their military. And very important to say that the U.S. has a bilateral agreement with Denmark. From 1951, they had a lot of people, a lot of military in Greenland in the past. And the Danes are totally fine if the U.S. would have a bigger presence than they have now. So I think this collectively shows that we make the same assessment, and we have to make sure that the Arctic stays safe.

[00:09:17] Speaker 8: That as far as NATO's reaction, Wolf, but what we also heard here in Paris these last couple of days from other European leaders is a great deal of bewilderment and anger, frankly, at this ratcheting up of the threats and the pressure and the rhetoric. This in a context when Europe has been trying to come to terms with the fact that this long-term ally has been behaving increasingly aggressively and in a hostile manner of the last few months, really ratcheted up these last few days over Greenland specifically, Wolf.

[00:09:42] Speaker 7: Yeah, good point. Melissa Bell, thank you very, very much. Pamela.

[00:09:46] Speaker 5: You have officials in Denmark saying that if the U.S. were to try to seize Greenland, that it would be the end of NATO. Yeah.

[00:09:52] Speaker 7: Manu Raju, our chief congressional correspondent, is up on Capitol Hill. Manu, you've been monitoring all these developments. What's been the reaction, at least so far, not just from Democrats who are very critical, but Republicans?

[00:10:06] Speaker 10: Yeah, look, I want to just emphasize, because I was asking those questions to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State about how they plan to proceed, not just on the issue of Venezuela, but also in Greenland at the very beginning of that gaggle. And it was very notable that the Secretary of State didn't really want to engage too much about Greenland. He didn't want to get into the prospects of the possible military action in Greenland. Remember, that's what the White House left on the table last night in that pretty extraordinary statement that it put out, saying that a military option is on the table. But we pressed Rubio time and time again to explain whether that's exactly the right course of action. I asked Rubio whether he's willing to go down the route, whether the administration's willing to go down the route of potentially disrupting the NATO alliance and going ahead with any sort of military action to acquire Greenland. He said, look, military options are always on the table, but we're not here to talk about Greenland. He went on to talk about how presidents and presidents, not just Trump, but other presidents past, have wanted to acquire Greenland in different ways or have more United States real estate on Greenland, had been interested in other past presidencies as well. So he really tried to distance himself or at least keep the administration suggests that it wasn't totally focused at this moment on acquiring Greenland, despite all the attention that statement got last night. He wanted to keep the focus on Venezuela.