NOT SO ARCTIC CHILL

Donald Trump’s imperialist threats to seize control of Greenland are the “most crazy thing” the country has experienced in modern times, a top local politician tells What A Day.

• President-elect Donald Trump likes to rhapsodize about the conquest of Greenland as if the island’s local inhabitants don’t get a say in the matter. But, surprise, surprise, they have some thoughts! And they generally find Trump’s talk “shocking and disturbing,” Pipaluk Lynge-Rasmussen, chair of the Greenland parliament’s Foreign and Security Policy Committee, exclusively told What A Day. Trump’s threats, which have explicitly included the possibility of military force, amount to “the most crazy thing I think we’ve experienced in modern times.”

• “It’s ironic that [Trump] uses the phrase, ‘the free world’ … We want to be part of that free world,” Lynge-Rasmussen said, speaking from her Ikea-decorated kitchen in the capital city of Nuuk via videochat. “We don’t want to be … under any other colonizers.”

• The island, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is hardly a hotbed of pro-MAGA feeling, she said, and is broadly closer to European values than Trump’s right-wing agenda. Just one example: Reproductive rights, which Trump rolled back in the U.S. by appointing supreme court justices who overturned Roe vs. Wade. “We have watched … female reproductive rights being taken away, step by step, during these couple of years in America,” she said. “Our values are very much more similar to Europe.” The people of Greenland hardly have a sky-high opinion of past U.S. treatment of native populations. “We have a picture of how you also … treat other Inuit and Indians and in your history,” she said.

Trump’s threats may sound preposterous, but we should take them “profoundly seriously,” Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration, said on Crooked’s Pod Save The World. That’s because Trump looks at Greenland with dollar signs in his eyes, and American adversaries on his mind.

• Greenland is rich in natural resources, especially the kind of rare earth minerals used for high tech manufacturing of electric cars and wind turbines. It’s got zinc, lead, gold, copper and — you guessed it — oil. The U.S. estimates that there could be 17.5 billion undiscovered barrels of oil beneath the surface, and loads of natural gas, too. But the country is currently run by democratic socialists, who stopped the hunt for oil four years ago.

• Greenland would also give the U.S. military enhanced access to the Arctic, where Russia and China are expanding. The Department of Defense would have an easier time snooping on both countries (China has pledged to invest heavily there in recent years). The Arctic might not seem like an obvious place for the next great struggle between world powers, but the DOD has published papers explaining why it’s crucial to national security. I guess having nearly 800 bases in over 70 countries and territories around the world just isn’t enough!

• Then there’s the hilarious theory that Donald Trump wants Greenland because he thinks it’s much bigger than it really is. He’s wondered audibly over Greenland’s size, while evidently ignoring the Mercator Projection, the mapmaker’s convention that flattens the globe to make Greenland look as big as Africa — even though it’s less than a third the size of Australia.

“I love maps,” Trump said in 2021. “And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’” Stable genius, indeed.

TIK TOCK FOR TIKTOK

Things aren’t looking good for TikTok.

The Supreme Court seemed poised to uphold a law that forces ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to either sell the wildly popular video-sharing platform or face a nationwide ban in the United States by January 19th. About a third of all Americans use the app, including about a third of adults.

During oral arguments this morning, justices appeared to support the argument that China could potentially harvest American users’ data from TikTok for espionage or blackmail. They’re set to make a ruling as soon as next week.

ByteDance has said it has no interest in selling the American version of TikTok — and plans to shut it down if the Supreme Court doesn’t block or delay a ban.

But there are still a couple ways that app could survive, even if the Supreme Court rules against ByteDance. Donald Trump, who loves TikTok ever since (according to him) it bolstered his presidential campaign, last month said he wants to save the app, and might actually be able to do it.

Meanwhile, potential buyers are circling. Kevin O’Leary, a billionaire best-known for being a “Shark Tank” TV show judge, said that he and a group of other wealthy guys are willing to pay up to $20 billion for the company. Weirdly, that deal wouldn’t include TikTok’s famed algorithm that tailors content to its users — one of the apps major draws. “We don’t need the algorithm. We don’t want the algorithm,” O’Leary said.

There are problems with his pitch, though — besides the fact that ByteDance insists it’s not selling. Some estimates value TikTok at around $100 billion, and it’s worth noting that Elon Musk bought the much less influential Twitter for $44 billion. O’Leary argues that if TikTok sells to him, its shareholders will at least get a payout, as opposed simply shutting the app down.

The reality is that no one knows how this will shape out. And for the many thousands of creators who have built livelihoods, businesses and communities on this app, the next couple weeks look like one hell of a nailbiter.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Donald Trump was sentenced in his New York hush-money case this morning, receiving no prison time for his 34 felonies. The moment is still historic: Trump is now, super-duper officially, the convicted felon that so many of us always knew he was, deep in our hearts. Judge Juan Merchan said “it was the only lawful sentence … without encroaching on the highest office in the land.” But his decision does not “reduce the seriousness of the crime” or change the fact that a jury found Trump guilty.

Eleven people have died and some 10,000 buildings have been destroyed as Los Angeles area wildfires continue to wreak havoc for the fourth day straight. Firefighters made some progress against the fires today with calmer winds, but strong gusts could pick up again over the weekend.

A federal judge found former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court for continuing to defame two former Georgia election workers. That’s the second time this week Giuliani has been found in contempt of court, which feels like he’s going for some kind of Guinness World Record.

Americans have a worse opinion of President Joe Biden’s presidency than they did of the end of Trump’s first term and former President Barack Obama’s final term, a new poll found. Was Trump’s poll conducted before or after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots?????

Trump’s star-studded administration keeps growing, and I don’t mean that as a compliment! He chose Leo Terrell, a former Fox News contributor, to be senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights — the 18th Fox News personality to get a job in the incoming admin. What could possibly go wrong?

Remember that “First Buddy” Elon Musk’s bizarre, legally questionable, million-dollar raffle to get more people to reach potential Trump voters? One of the winners was a Trump campaign worker, according to election filings. I mean, that fits.

A large number of liberal Americans have fled to the U.K. since Trump’s election, according to British immigration lawyers. That includes same-sex couples who are worried about the potential rollback of their rights in the coming years, citing Trump’s ties to the far-right Project 2025 agenda.

2024 was the hottest year on record, with the average temperature increasing more than most scientists had predicted.

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