Blinken and top Democrats push back against Trump bid for US to take over Greenland – as it happened | Joe Biden
Blinken says Trump’s call for US to take over Greenland ‘not going to happen’
Antony Blinken, the outgoing secretary of state, said that Donald Trump’s idea of the United States taking over Greenland – perhaps by military force – is “not a good one” and will not happen.
“I think one of the basic propositions we brought to our work over the last four years is that we’re stronger, we’re more effective, We get better results when we’re working closely with our allies, not saying or doing things that may alienate them,” Blinken said at a press conference in Paris held alongside French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
“Having said that, the idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good one, but maybe more important, it’s obviously one that’s not going to happen. So we probably shouldn’t waste a lot of time talking about it.”
Blinken will step down once Joe Biden leaves office on 20 January. Trump has nominated Marco Rubio, the Republican Florida senator, to succeed him.
Key events
Closing summary
Donald Trump’s inauguration is mere days away, but leading Democrats say they have no interest in going along with the incoming president’s plans to expand the United States. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said his lawmakers were not elected to help seize the Panama Canal by force, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer challenged Trump to come up with a plan to lower costs for Americans if he wants his party’s support for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. On a visit to France, the outgoing secretary of state, Antony Blinken, called Trump’s idea of taking control of Greenland a bad idea that is “not going to happen”. Elsewhere, legal wrangling over special counsel Jack Smith’s report documenting his fruitless prosecutions of Trump continues. The justice department told a court considering a challenge to their release that it planned to make public only Smith’s findings around Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and reserve the evidence in the classified documents case for a select group of lawmakers in Congress.
Here’s more about what happened today:
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Dignitaries paid tribute to ex-president Jimmy Carter, who is lying in state at the US Capitol ahead of his funeral Thursday.
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Joe Biden told USA Today in what may be his last interview with a print publication as president that he thinks he would have won re-election, but was not sure he could have served the whole term.
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Trump appealed to the supreme court to pause his sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday in the case against him on hush money charges.
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Denmark’s foreign minister said his country would be open to discussing with the US security concerns involving Greenland, which it controls, but downplayed talk of it becoming the 51st state.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee to lead the department of health and human services, made the rounds on Capitol hill, where one Republican senator appeared uneasy with his anti-vaccine views.
What do the people of Greenland think of Donald Trump’s desire to take control of the island?
Reuters asked around in Nuuk, the capital of the Danish-controlled, autonomously government island, which Donald Trump Jr visited yesterday.
Here’s what residents said:
Mikael Ludvidsen, a resident of capital Nuuk, was skeptical about the president-elect’s intentions, telling Reuters: “I think he’s talking too loudly. I don’t think you can take him seriously when he says he’s going to take us over by force.”
“I think it’s too much,” said local Niels Nielsen. Greenland “can’t be bought,” he added.
But others said aligning with a superpower might be helpful for Greenland, which has a population of just 57,000 people.
Resident Jens Ostermann, carrying a small child bundled up against the winter cold, said: “We should partner with a great power because Greenland is a rich country, we have everything here.”
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede has urged residents to remain calm and united. But he has also emphasized his desire for Greenland to become fully independent from Denmark, its former colonial ruler.
Some locals sported Make America Great Again caps to greet Trump Jr., with Greenlandic daily Sermitsiaq headlining its report: “Warm but reserved welcome for Donald Trump Jr.”
Opinions among Greenlanders about the future of their country are divided, according to Aki-Matilda Hoegh-Dam, a member of Greenland’s social-democratic Siumut party in the Danish parliament.
“Trump’s reaction is a statement of how important Greenland is in the geopolitical area at this moment,” she said.
After Donald Trump proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled her own proposal to rename a major geographic feature. Here’s more:
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, has responded to Donald Trump’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America with a counter-proposal to rename North America.
Standing before a global map in her daily press briefing, Sheinbaum proposed dryly that the continent should be known as “América Mexicana”, or “Mexican America”, because an 1814 founding document that preceded Mexico’s constitution referred to it that way.
“That sounds nice, no?” she added with a sarcastic tone. She also noted that the ocean basin bounded by the US Gulf coast, Mexico’s eastern states and the island of Cuba has been known as the Gulf of Mexico since 1607.
Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term on 20 January, said on Tuesday he planned to rename the Gulf “the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring”.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the department of health and human services, is meeting with more Republican senators on Capitol Hill today, and signs have emerged that at least one lawmaker has questions about his anti-vaccine views.
On X, Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana senator and medical doctor whose official biography notes his participation in a vaccine drive, said he had a “frank conversation” with Kennedy – but makes no mention of if he will support him:
Had a frank conversation with HHS nominee @RobertKennedyJr. We spoke about vaccines at length. Looking forward to the hearings in HELP and Finance.
CNN reports that they tried to suss out Cassidy’s views, but he refused to say much more:
After an hour-long meeting between RFK Jr and Senate HELP Chairman Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican wouldn’t say if he’d support Kennedy’s nomination to HHS. First, Cassidy darted on an elevator. Then, we caught up with him at the Capitol and he responded by saying they had a “frank conversation.” He also said they spoke about “every permutation of vaccines.”
Maya Yang
Fox News is investigating claims that an insider leaked questions to Donald Trump’s team just minutes before a town hall last year.
The Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports:
Fox News has launched an investigation into claims that an insider leaked questions to Donald Trump’s team minutes before a pivotal Iowa town hall last January.
According to a new book by the Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, Trump’s aides received text messages containing the exact wording of questions and planned follow-ups minutes before the broadcast began. The town hall was moderated by the network anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
The leak, if confirmed, covered sensitive topics including Trump’s business entanglements, his multiple indictments and potential plans for political payback.
In a statement, the network said it had “no evidence” of the leak but would investigate any potential breach.
For the full story, click here:
Maya Yang
In a new interview with CNN’s Christiane Ampanour, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas responded to Donald Trump’s vows of mass deportations on the first day of his presidency, saying:
“I don’t quite yet know what mass deportation means in reality. I understand the rhetoric very well and what it is causing domestically but I do not…really know how it will materialize. We will need to see what it actually means in real life and whether it does transgress legal authority.”
Mayorkas went on to say:
“It most certainly will be challenged in the courts. I must say, every action in the realm of immigration is challenged in the courts. It is an incredibly divisive issue.”
Maya Yang
Donald Trump, as part of his many sweeping pledges as the US’s incoming president, has talked in recent days about annexing Greenland.
Exactly why is Trump obsessed with Denmark’s autonomous territory? The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant reports:
Trump has said the US needs control of Greenland – and the Panama canal – for “economic security” and has described ownership and control of the territory as an “absolute necessity”. Greenland has long been on Trump’s radar as a target for purchase and in 2019 he confirmed reports that he had been urging aides to find out how the US could buy the vast Arctic island, describing a sale as “essentially a large real estate deal”.
As well as oil and gas, Greenland’s supply of multiple in-demand raw materials for green technology is attracting interest from around the world – including from China, which dominates global rare earth production and has threatened to restrict the export of critical minerals. By acquiring Greenland, the US could keep China out.
Strategically positioned between the US and Russia, Greenland is viewed as increasingly important for defence and is emerging as a geopolitical battleground as the climate crises worsens.
The rapid melting of the island’s huge ice sheets and glaciers could open up oil drilling (although Greenland in 2021 stopped granting exploration licences) and mining for essential minerals including copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel.
For the full explainer, click here:
Dignitaries pay respects to Jimmy Carter as ex-president lies in state at US Capitol
Jimmy Carter is lying in state at the US Capitol, ahead of the former president’s funeral scheduled for Thursday.
His casket has attracted mourners from across the political spectrum, including the former Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell:
And supreme court Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
The day so far
Donald Trump’s inauguration is mere days away, but leading Democrats say they have no interest in going along with the incoming president’s plans to expand the United States. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said his lawmakers were not elected to help seize the Panama Canal by force, while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer challenged Trump to come up with a plan to lower costs for Americans if he wants his party’s support for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. On a visit to France, the outgoing secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Trump’s idea of taking control of Greenland is a bad idea that is “not going to happen”. Elsewhere, legal wrangling over special counsel Jack Smith’s report documenting his fruitless prosecutions of Trump continues. The justice department told a court considering a challenge to their release that it planned to make public only Smith’s findings around Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and reserve the evidence in the classified documents case for a select group in Congress.
Here’s more about what happened today:
-
Joe Biden told USA Today in what may be his last interview with a print publication as president that he thinks he could have won re-election, but was not sure he could have served the whole term.
-
Trump appealed to the supreme court to pause his sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday in the case against him on hush money charges.
-
Denmark’s foreign minister said his country would be open to discussing with the US security concerns involving Greenland, which it controls, but downplayed talk of it becoming the 51st state.
Biden heading to Los Angeles-area fire station as wildfires threaten city
Joe Biden is in Los Angeles as wildfires threaten several of its neighborhoods and suburbs, and will be heading to a fire station in Santa Monica this afternoon, the White House said.
The president will receive a briefing from California state firefighting officials during his visit, and has also spoken to the state’s governor Gavin Newsom about the blazes.
We have a live blog covering the disaster, which has destroyed 1,000 structures so far. Follow along here:
Leader of Senate Democrats says Trump’s comments on Gulf of Mexico amount to ‘strange, and rather random, ideas’
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, said Donald Trump should focus on finding a plan to lower costs for Americans, rather than on issues like renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Yesterday, the president-elect said the body of water that stretches along the US and Mexican coasts should be renamed to the “Gulf of America”.
“Donald Trump throws out a lot of strange, and rather random, ideas on a regular basis. He did it yesterday, when suggesting we rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America,” Schumer said today, in remarks on the Senate floor.
“Well, let me say this: I’d agree to working with Donald Trump on renaming the Gulf of Mexico, only if he first agrees to work with us on an actual plan to lower costs for Americans. That is what the American people want us to focus on first, not on renaming bodies of water. Our Democratic priorities are so much more closely aligned with the concerns of the American people than Donald Trump’s seem to be.”
Democrats may be headed for at least two years in the minority in the US House and Senate, but yesterday managed to preserved their control of Virginia’s state legislature in a special election. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Michael Sainato:
Democrats in Virginia preserved their majority in the state legislature late on Tuesday in the first statewide elections since Donald Trump’s presidential victory in November.
In special elections for open seats, Kannan Srinivasan, a Democratic state representative, defeated Republican Tumay Harding in a race for an open state senate seat in Loudon county, Virginia, just outside of Washington DC.
Democrat JJ Singh won an open state house seat in the same county, over Republican Ram Venkatachalam. Republicans held on to a state senate seat vacated by John McGuire, who won a first term in the US House of Representatives in November 2024.
The state Democrats have a slim 21-to-19 seat majority in the state senate and a 51-to-49 lead in the state house, making things difficult for the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, in the final year of his first term in office. He flipped the governorship to Republican in the November 2021 election.
Top House Democrat says party has no interest in cooperating with Trump’s calls to expand the US
Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries took a swipe at Donald Trump’s calls for the United States to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal and merge with Canada, saying his party’s lawmakers were not elected to pursue such policies.
“House Democrats believe that they are not sent Washington to invade Greenland, rename the Gulf of Mexico or seize the Panama Canal by force. We were sent to Washington to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America,” Jeffries said at a press conference.
Asked if he would get behind Trump’s call yesterday to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, Jeffries reiterated his earlier comments about lowering costs. “Housing costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, insurance costs are too high, utility costs are too high and childcare costs are too high. We have to build an affordable economy for hard working American taxpayers.”
Jeffries said he did not expect to meet with Trump later today, when the president-elect has a meeting scheduled with Senate Republicans, but expects to talk with him in the future.
